Sharck of Heroes
by Buttler
Summary: It all started with an abnormal morning. Now Sharck is thrust into a world of his wildest nightmares where he is considered part of a team of heroes and must help to defeat the Demon King. He must quickly adapt or risk being too late. Can he make a brave decision, or will he simply go down the wrong path? New challenges await.
1. Abnormal Beginnings

**Disclaimer: I do not own any character or setting from League of Angels. This belongs to GTArcade.**

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Well, here I am procrastinating again trying to figure out what to do and what's the next step to take towards my future. Wandering back and forth to work and home, each day seemed the same and daily activities became repeated involuntary motions through time. I'd wake up to an annoying alarm coming from my android phone. I'd snooze it, it'd sound again three minutes later, I'd snooze it again... Three minutes later... Snooze... Snooze... Haha! Well, pretty much I wouldn't get up out of my bed until about an hour later. I always tried to set my alarm ahead of the time I wanted to get up. However, in anticipation of how much time I had left to get ready and head to work I usually wouldn't get up until I HAD to. Basically, I failed every morning to get up on time. Go figure.

This morning was a bit different though. For some reason I couldn't get my mind straight at all. I woke up much earlier than needed and didn't have to go to work 'til a couple hours later. I could only groan as I tried to force myself back to sleep. As I moved, something wet caught my attention. It was my t-shirt. I ignored this as sometimes I would get up and notice that I'd been sweating a little bit while sleeping. It gets colder at night and so the heater kicks in more which causes it to get stuffy throughout the dark hours. I was still a moment away from going back to sleep until I realized my shirt wasn't just wet, it was soaked. I jumped up and positioned myself in a sitting position to make sure I had not spilled any water on me. I had sat water right next to me as I fell asleep last night watching Youtube videos. As I moved my legs to position myself to sit, I felt how wet my legs were as well, especially around my thighs. Yeah, I must have spilled the water on top of me as I moved in my sleep. This wouldn't be the first time. I spilled water (thank goodness that's what I mostly drink and not something sticky) on me before and had a rude awakening when I got up that morning. It goes without saying that I had to change clothes and dry the ones I had taken off. I normally don't sleep in anything but a t-shirt and some pajama pants anyway. I've been told by few that this is too much and can become uncomfortable and that I should consider wearing less. Sometimes I throw on some shorts if I feel it's going to be quite stuffy in the room but that's about it. It all depends on how much the air circulates throughout the room during the night. I have never tried sleeping naked, and I don't really feel comfortable trying it.

Hmm, I'm sure I didn't "wet" myself. I stopped doing that decades ago it seems like. I can't remember the last time I wet the bed. So, what was this then?

Having had enough of thinking to myself, I reached over and grapped the cup to see if it was still full. I must have fallen asleep without drinking any last night as the cup could have easily lost a couple ounces just by slightly tipping it. The good news was that I had not spilt any water on myself. Now that I think about it, that should have been obvious from the fact that the cup was still up on the dresser. Haha. But then why was I so drenched? I really wanted to go back to sleep so I would catch up on my snooze. There was enough time for me to grab a few more z's and at least a little more energy for work. I've only been asleep for about five hours and I try to maintain at least seven a day. That's usually enough for me for any day, boring or active. I knew if I hadn't gotten enough sleep, it would be difficult for me to stay up after eating lunch around noon. I get hit with the food curse right around that time. Haha. I guess I can try and go back to sleep right? I'll just change clothes when I get up later.

*sigh*

Nope, I was still awake. I checked my phone again and only eight minutes had passed since I woke up. I am really going to regret this later on. I'll just give it some time.

I try and try to go back to sleep, but I just can't calm my mind enough. My mind is racing and I can't really explain it. I am anxious, confused, and I even feel slightly immobile. I could move my head and arms... but I couldn't get up.

"What the heck is going on," I caught myself saying out loud. I struggled to move, but all that responded was my head. My dog noticed my distress and eased his way towards me. At least that's what I thought. I turned to get a better look. No, this wasn't my dog was it? A fluffy cloud-like dark figure? I squint my eyes to get an even better look. It was pitch black in my room so that didn't help much. I could only make out the outlined figure heading towards me on all fours... The figure sat by my bed. No, that was definitely my dog. By now my eyes had adjusted a bit and I could make out the spitz sitting right next to me, now jumping up on the side so that his legs lay across my lap to stretch his barely woke muscles. He was probably worried and a little agitated with me. He sat right next to my bed in anticipation making sure I was okay. I closed my eyes and shook my head to rattle these thoughts away. My dog, fine dark-brown fur with a long bushy tail and pointy ears. He resembled a fox in almost every way possible. I reached over to pet him on the head. He bowed his head to allow my hand easy access to the top of his neck. "Don't worry boy I'm just going crazy." He watched me for several more seconds and then walked off to go lie back down.

I then am able to concentrate on my original concern, my inability to get up. I simply hopped up out of the bed as I threw the covers and sheets off of me. "Hmm, that's weird. I could've sworn I was stuck." I went to the bathroom and looked at the mirror right above the sink. I immediately notice that my clothes are not wet at all. That's good for me, but what was I experiencing then? What made my body feel so wet before?

I have to start getting ready soon. I didn't have any reason to be awake right now besides to lose sleep. What happened though? I feel like something is up. My head is unclear and my thoughts are scattered. Hmmm, maybe I will figure it out later. Just thinking to myself more than likely won't solve anything. I'll just go back to my bed to pass out.

"Good morning everybody," I say as I drag myself through the work doors. "Good morning," they say back in unison. I worked at a local movie theater. My co-workers were regular boys and girls. Nothing in particular stood out honestly. I mean sure, there were different races which means the diversity was present, but we all pretty much were there for one reason, and that's to earn money. We would come in and play around at the concession stand, run through the auditoriums as we cleaned between rounds, or just play card games when we had free time. Anything to make the day go by faster I guess. Every once-in-awhile a couple of us would hang out after work or go into the theater and watch a movie.

Anyways I had something to do after work today so there was no reason for my mind to be overcast. I figured that if I ran a mile or two things would clear up. Maybe I was coming down with one of those seasonal colds I usually receive at around the time the weather starts drastically changing. One week it would be snowing around where I lived, and the next the clouds would be racing across the skies bringing storms and tornado warnings across cities and districts. Even though I never experienced anything like what happened this morning, it could just be a headache or a temporary immunity problem. One thing was for sure though, the way I was feeling was definitely different than normal.

I got home after work and quickly raced to the bathroom to take a leak. That's when I started having another episode. The walls became detailed with roses. Each one was about a foot long with a prickly stem and a bloody red color. They were etched on the walls as if they weren't actually attached. There were about ten all across the walls and the ceiling. I breathed in and noticed a faint scent that tickled my nose. I wrinkled my face in reaction and sneezed a couple times. After sneezing again, I realized that the smell had become stronger and started to take form. Well, it wasn't so much of a shape as much as I could actually see the smoke. I then noticed that the roses caught fire somehow and started to take shape. One by one they began to morph into tiny daggers. I noticed trembling and twitching within my hands. I stared at the daggers as I slowly reached for the door handle to make my escape, but regretted it. The burning daggers immediately turned their pointed edges toward me and accelerated. I didn't have enough time to act so I shrink against the door and closed my eyes. I turned my head to face away from the danger rushing towards me. I tensed my muscles expecting the worse pain imaginable across my whole body. The walls were angry and suddenly decided to thrust their daggers at me...

Nothing. I was afraid to open my eyes because I wondered if when I was ignorant enough to believe the danger had went away, I would have been very disappointed. I raised my right arm and felt in front of my face. I didn't feel anything. I stretched my arm out to touch anything tangible. I did indeed touch something, but it was only the shower curtain. I opened my eyes to notice the walls had returned to normal. The smell had gone away and so has the smoke the burning roses produced.

I couldn't take it anymore. My heart was pounding and I caught the jitters really bad. I tried to let out a deep breath to calm my nerves, but it didn't work. I don't even remember what I was supposed to be doing up till now, but something told me it didn't matter. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen and I could do nothing to stop it.

The day wasn't quite over yet so I still expected some more episodes to come. I had not been hurt by them yet, but I still needed to be cautious. No one was home, but Fox and me. Fox is my little dog. He's more of a medium dog actually. He weighs fourty-six pounds, but he's also chubby. His veterinarian said he needed to lose a few pounds to help his heart and to relieve some stress from his aching bones. He was close to his life expectancy even though he still could get around just fine.

I left him at the house as I went to go for a walk. There was a trail right behind my house where I'd frequently run. This time however, I just felt like walking. The trail served as a belt for one of the lamest lakes ever, Lake Poss. Poss was the name of some idiot who jumped in the water trying to commit suicide. He failed by discovering he could breathe underwater. Of course this was only a tale and was never proven. They supposedly named the lake after him because he one time swam out of the water to sunbathe and it was the first time anyone had ever seen anything like it. He's done this a few times since then. He'd come out and then he would simply walk back in. I never understood it and never cared for it. The trail was just a complete circle, but because the lake was so big the trail was about two-and-a-half miles long.

I continue walking until I get a funny feeling. I become drowsy and my eyes start to become heavy. "WHHOOONK! WHHOOONK! WHOOONK!" My eyes jolt open and I immediately look for the source of that alarming sound. "WHHHOOOONK!" It sounded like honking coming from above me. I look up and find nothing. The sounds stop as well. "That was a short episode," I say to no one but myself. I look up again and still see nothing, but I hear a faint noise coming from the bushes beside me. I could not identify what it sounded like as the noise was too faint. I study the bush intensely waiting to make a move in case something unfamiliar was to hop out towards me. I didn't have enough time to make a calculated movement once I saw arrows, like one normally would need a bow to project, shot right at me. I tried to move out of the way but tripped instead and fell flat on my face.

The arrows had missed but the pain somehow made a connection. I felt a sharp pain on my right side. I realize my eyes are closed so I open them to see something I wish I could explain or maybe just never see so I wouldn't have to explain, explain to myself that what I am witnessing is beyond unreal. This episode has taken a whole 'nother approach to illusions. I was in a world that was unrecognizable even in my most bizarre fantasies. I wasn't in a building but I couldn't see the sky. My surroundings were shrouded in thick maroon colored fog. The air was very dense and it was problematic to even simply breathe. My head became light and my body numb. The pain in my side doubled as if I had just been hit by another arrow. "Ahh!" I screamed. I closed my eyes as the pain had just crossed the barrier between bearable to agonizing. "Oops, sorry," a voice apologized. I didn't see who it was but the voice had to have come from a man. It sounded very deep and masculine. I felt a light wind blow by me.

I heard footsteps approach which were graced with another voice, this time a female, "Rose Knight ar-... are you okay? I heard... screaming." She sounded concerned and at her limit. She was breathing very heavy, almost heaving. This Rose Knight responded, "I'll be fine Princess I just tripped over this poor fellow." He must have been referring to me. "Why did you turn around, we can't let the King get a hold of you." "I have more than just myself to worry about... Now come on!" "Right. Right behind you." The sound of footsteps became fainter and fainter to my left. I quickly came to and opened my eyes to see who it was conversing but the air was so heavy I couldn't see more than ten feet in front of me.

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 **Author's Notes: I may not have the entire story in first person, but it seems to fit for right now so I'll continue with it. This may change when more characters start being introduced. Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave a comment and give your thoughts as this is my first story and I'm eager to know what others think.**


	2. Sharck

**Disclaimer: I do not own any character or setting from League of Angels. This belongs to GTArcade.**

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This wasn't looking good. This illusion somehow seemed real and I can't shake the fact that it might just be. This place looked horrible and nothing like what I am used to.

My side was still hurting, but I was fine enough to get up now. I wanted to try and find out where those two people came from and why they were in such a rush. Well, I still don't quite believe all of this yet. I mean come on, besides the thick choking fog this place seemed pretty normal. Then again, maybe not. I couldn't tell if there was a sun, but it wasn't dark. The tint in the fog made it look like it was the time of a setting sun. Enough of this though I guess, it's time to figure this place out.

I started to walk forward but then stopped and observed some more.

This place seemed ominous. There was no evidence of life around me. It was what I'd imagine Antarctica is like for various parts of the continent, aside from the temperatures. The temperature here was just right without the constant blowing wind. The wind ran a marathon and just didn't stop blowing lightly around my body, hugging me with a cool embrace. If any lifeform was around me somewhere, it stood to itself and didn't care to make itself noticable at all. There were no signs of even vegetation in sight. I know that I could not see but a small distance in front of me and that may be why I didn't notice anything but I wasn't even standing on grass. Under my feet was the bare hard dry ground that cracked in certain areas.

I could feel the constant whip of air around me. I couldn't hear in the distance even when I concentrated. If I could see something it would be that much better, or worse. I may not want to see what's around me. This place wasn't exactly charming. Even still, I might as well walk until I find something.

I started to wander, paying close attention to what was right in front of me as that was all I could actually see. I looked over my shoulder frequently expecting any unfamiliar noise or figure to catch my senses. The air kept pestering my lungs. I honestly did not want to make this walk, but I knew I had to.

"I'll try and follow where those other two characters ran off towards. Maybe I'll find someone along the way." I suddenly started thinking aloud. "I know whatever made them run like that must be very dangerous so I'd better not go behind me." I continued to walk forwards. I couldn't see anything but fog so I really didn't understand how they were able to find their way through here.

The ground was hard on my feet and made the walk that much harder to endure. It was quite difficult to focus at first since I had to put so much effort into willingly breathing the surrounding thick gas in. It didn't have a bad smell at all, it just wasn't easy to pass through my respiratory. "I really hope nothing crazy happens to me." I've had enough of awful happenings for one day honestly.

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I heard a light noise and I stopped walking and froze up as the sound came from behind me. I wanted to run but I knew that would be just as crazy as going to look for whatever made that sound. This is the first sound I heard since I started walking so whatever it was had to be close by. There's nothing to hide behind because I'm in the middle of nowhere with no prop or shrub to hide me. Whatever it was was bound to see me. I just hoped it was friendly.

I waited, but nothing happened. Did it stop too? By this point I realized just how scared I was and refused to turn around. "Hello?" I simply spoke facing away from where I heard the noise. It might not have heard me but I didn't care. I was denied a reply so instead of turning around, I continued walking.

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After walking and getting used to breathing in the fog for what felt like thirty minutes, I came across a break in the thickened air where I could actually see a good distance. I was surprised to see what I did. Wherever I was, it was nothing I had ever seen with my own eyes. The air was cleaner, I could see miles away, and I was standing on top of a large hill. I couldn't make out much but I could now see that the sun had set and it was starting to get dark. There was a huge structure in the shape of a rounded flat-top building in the distance. I noticed sections that made the whole figure resemble a wedding cake. The bottom was much wider than the top. It could have been at least fifteen miles away and yet, it was still clearly giant. I sensed life coming from that way and could see little lights shine in the structure. I started towards it and heard noises. Yep, there was life over there after all. I went to jog and then heard another noise. I was happy enough to forget how scared I was before. I turned around without much thought to see if someone was there.

I couldn't completely see the person but they looked very skinny and stiff. "Hello," I decided to greet this person. I couldn't completely see them as the fog still held them in its clutches. "Hey do you know anything about this place?" The figure just stood there refusing to reply. "Please. I don't know where I am and if you could help me that would be great. I really just want to get out of here but if you could tell me the best way to get to that place over there, that'll be a start." I said as I pointed to the large building. Upon saying this though, I realized I might have said too much. Apparently I was right because the figure charged at me. Once it came into the clearing, I realized that the figure was not really a person.

"What the f-" I was interrupted as I had to quickly dodge to the side. This "person" might have been a person once before but now they were just bones. I was being attacked by a skeleton that was completely bare of any signs of having been alive ever. It was completely stripped of meat and blood like it's been completely decomposed a long time ago. I didn't smell any decay or anything. I noticed the scythe in his hands as he swung it wildly towards me. I moved from side to side easily dodging attacks I had no idea I knew how to dodge. He'd swing his weapon at my head and I'd dodge by moving back or ducking.

"Woah, what the... hell is wrong... with you!?" I yelled in between missed attacks. I impressed myself until I got cocky and let him get too close. He landed a cut onto my arm. "Ahhh!" This would have been more painful if I hadn't been occupied. Blood started to run down my arm but I couldn't pay attention to it as I had to keep dodging and making sure to keep a safe distance. I jumped back and landed in a three-point-stance. I was really feeling myself now. I kept it up even stupidly dodging into the fog. Now I couldn't see my enemy unless he was close.

I still kept it up just narrowly making my escape from each of his attacks. I could feel his weapon slicing the air right in front of me. This guy just didn't give up! All was going okay until I started feeling a little woozy. This slowed me down considerably.

There was a pause, however. I couldn't tell if he ran off or just got tired of me dodging his attacks. I quickly ran towards the clearing and made it out of the fog. I was tired but I couldn't give up. I looked around for him but I didn't see anything. He was good at hiding so I backed away from the fog knowing that's where he most likely was. Sadly, I was wrong. I heard steps coming from the side and quickly looked to see him bringing down his weapon. I was too tired to move fast enough and tripped over my own foot and loss my balance. I couldn't recover and fell to the ground on my side. The skeleton had it's opportunity and didn't hesitate to take it.

I guess I'll be waking up soon right? Right? Well, I was already injured and it was very painful which probably meant I wasn't dreaming. Damn it, how did this end up happening? Where was I?

The skeleton started bringing it's weapon down upon me and suddenly collapsed. His bones just fell apart from each other like a miniature tower and formed a pile with a bow in the middle of it. His scythe landed right next to my legs as I heard giggling.

"Woah that was close," a cheery voice breathed. "We almost let that guy bite it."

"You mean you almost let that guy die. I saved him," another female voice. This one had a more serious and lower tone to it.

"Awww come on, that's not fair. You know I couldn't help him."

"Why not? I'm sure he could have survived a few of your burns."

"Nuh-uhh. He would have become another skelley." she said as she laughed.

" Whatever. Let's go, we have to meet the princess in her quarters."

"Wait! We can't just leave this guy. He's wounded."

"He's not our problem."

"You're no fun."

The happy one started walking up to me. I could get a good look at her and she looked weird, almost like a magician would look if I ever saw one. Her face had a sweet smile with rosy cheeks plastered onto it. She had kind emerald eyes and red lipstick that matched her hair. Her hair was of a red-violet color and was in a ponytail that extended down to her lower back and a bang along the side of her face. She had a top hat with what looked like a white long bushy feather duster hanging out the back on top of her head. She wore a black corset that was white on the front. I could tell she was thin because of how close it wrapped around her waist. On the tail end was a sort of cape that covered her back all the way from her butt to her calves. On her hands and arms were long off-white gloves that went up to about mid-arm. Her legs wore extra long black socks that went all the way up to her pelvic region. The strangest thing about her though was the staff she held in her hand. It had a funky swirly design at the end of it. I had no idea what it was made of but it looked like it'd hurt if she were to hit me with it.

I slowly stood up and spoke as she reached me, "Thanks for that."

"Oh it was nothing, right Greeny?" A rhetorical question that received no answer. "You are badly injured though. Why don't you come with us? You were going that way anyway right?" She pointed with her staff towards the direction I was headed before being interrupted by the skeleton.

"I... I..." I had a hard time speaking to her as she was so close to my face, only a mere foot away. I moved back just a little bit. "I don't know where I'm going." I wanted to pretend like I knew what was going on but I didn't. "I don't know where I'm at. I don't know what the hell just happened and why I was attacked by a skeleton. I am lost and I need to find a way back home. I figured I'd just go to that building over there and see what happens."

She gasped and looked horrified. "Oh noo! You poor thing! You have to come with us now. Maybe the princess knows something."

The other girl finally chimed in, "You idiot, why would the princess know anything about him. For all we know he could be a spy who was sent here by the Demon King. He's probably just pretending to be stupid."

"The Demon King?" I asked not sure why I did.

"Hmph. Like you don't know. Don't play games with us human. Just what exactly do you want with the princess?" I noticed her tense up.

"The princess?" A hood covered her head and part of her face. I was unable to see her facial expression but I felt she wasn't smiling. She wore a green hood with some of her golden hair leaking out the front stopping right around her chest. She wore a plain white mini skirt with some boots that looked like a gem was attached to each tongue. She had on long purple socks. She also had a weapon and held the bow firmly in her left hand. A hand in a fingerless purple glove held an arrow. She was shorter than the other girl. "Look I don't know anything. I don't know about some princess, I don't know about some Demon King. I'm sorry but please put that bow down."

"See Greeny, he's confused and hurt. No need to kill a defenseless man."

Greeny paused and put her arrow away in its holder placed around her hip. "Okay. I knew you weren't with the Demon King or else that skeleton wouldn't have attacked you. Let's just get one thing clear though, I do not trust you. Don't think I won't kill you right where you stand if you try anything funny." It sure was hard to swallow right as she said this.

"Got it." I held my breath and suddenly felt like I shouldn't move. I wasn't really scared but I didn't want to make any sudden movements and end up like the pile of bones next to us.

"Is your arm going to be okay?" The girl next to me asked with sincere concern in her voice.

"I think I'll be okay," I lied. Now that things had died down my arm throbbed viciously. Blood slowly continued to ooze out.

"We have to hurry. Your arm looks really bad and it's already getting scary dark."

Greeny chuckled, "Let us go then. We're only ten kilometers away."

"Yay!" The cheery one showed a large amount of excitement. "Come on guy. Hey, what's your name anyway?" She asked as she was making sure I was okay to walk on my own. "I'm Pyrona." She tilted her head to the back, "And that is Green Ranger, I just call her Greeny though." She giggled.

"Hi Pyrona. Hi Green Ranger. My name is Sharck. Nice to meet you two."

"Oooh, nice name! It sounds fishy though." She giggled. "This is going to be so much fun!" Pyrona shouted into the darkness.

We started our trek down the hill towards our only source of light for the night.

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 **Author's Notes: I don't have much to say this chapter. Next chapter our little trio makes it to the castle and meet some of the residents. Thanks for reading.**


	3. Enter The Castle

**Disclaimer: I only own Sharck and Brawn. I do not own any other character or setting in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade.**

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It took a little while for us to reach the place we were going to. The ladies knew exactly where to go so I followed them the whole way. Surprisingly we didn't run into any trouble during our walk towards our destination. Pyrona kept getting real close to me and inquiring about my past and what I was doing before they found me. I told her I didn't know anything besides the fact that I was living in my normal world and then all of a sudden I woke up in fog. I started to chat with her about my illusions prior to as well. She made me feel like I was a professional story teller as she "Oooh'd" and "Ahhh'd" at almost everything I described to her. I asked her questions too and she seemed more than glad to tell me anything I wanted to know about. She told me a little about herself and where she came from and how much progression she had left before she reached her goal as a mage. I didn't really believe the whole mage thing, and the way she dressed just made it seem like she was just role-playing the whole time. Still, I wondered why she was so trusting of me. I mean what reason did she have? In all honesty though, I liked her and trusted her very much too. I really enjoyed her company, she seemed very kind and innocent. There's no way she'd do anything crazy and I truly felt that way about her. Green Ranger was a different story however. I tried talking to her but she usually just ignored me.

"What about you Green Ranger, where did you come from?"

"The wilderness," she simply stated.

"The wilderness?"

"The wilderness is my home."

"Seriously? Is it close by?"

"..."

"Why do you live in the wilderness? Is that normal where you come from? I don't mean to be rude but that sounds rough."

Pyrona stopped me from probably annoying Green Ranger any further, "Greeny doesn't like talking about that much Sharcky." Oh yeah, she has been calling me "Sharcky" ever since I told her my name; I didn't care really as I figured it was just a friendly thing with her. "Even I still get two headaches from trying to pull information out of her butt. She's one stubborn elf." Green Ranger twitched and groaned loudly. "I- I mean girl. Haha. One stubborn girl. Yeah." Pyrona sounded nervous.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I checked my arm to make sure it was still there. It was still giving me a bother and was almost completely numb. "How much longer do we have guys? I really don't think I can take much more of this. I'm starting to get hungry and very thirsty. Can we stop Green Ranger, you keep walking and I'm having a hard time keeping up? Green Ranger?"

Green Ranger turned to me looking really frustrated, "Are you doing that on purpose?"

"No I really am getting sick an-"

"Talking! I mean talking! Be quiet!" Pyrona gasped.

I couldn't say anything, I didn't know what to say. I had no idea she felt that negative towards me. I shrunk down within myself and didn't make an attempt to say anything to her anymore.

"Greeny that wasn't nice." Pyrona said with a completely different tone than what I'm used to her voice containing.

* * *

For a while it was very quiet and solemn. Green Ranger walked all the way ahead of us, barely staying visible. Pyrona and I walked side-by-side, a few feet apart from each other.

I was at my limit and caused Pyrona to protest, "Ohhh no we have to keep moving. I really am sorry but you won't make it out here if we stopped now. You must understand please." She came close to me to help me continue walking. My pride was microscopic by now and I really just wanted them to leave me and let me be. There really was no reason for them to drag me along other than just an act of kindness. I knew that I was only slowing them down and that's probably why we haven't made it yet. Green Ranger probably knew this as well and was frustrated because of it.

We walked across a few camps, most were empty and damaged. There were no signs of life around and it felt almost like it did when I first arrived in this place. Some of the camps had things, mainly just clothes, sprawled out everywhere throughout them. There were little toys here, books there, tools, and other miscellaneous things. Fires were still lit, some were put out, and food was overcooked hanging over burnt wood. It was as if an evacuation was announced and everyone had to leave immediately. One camp we came across I started feeling winded. I wanted to stop walking and knew all too well that I was getting to be overwhelmed and needed to stop and rest. My feet were hurting, I started getting chills, I couldn't see because it was dark, I was dehydrated and hungry, and my arm had no feeling whatsoever anymore. Every time I would want to stop and rest though, Pyrona would respond the same way, "We have to keep moving. If we wait too long you may not make it. We can stop going for a little while if you really feel like you have to but its best if we keep moving. Once we get to the castle, Lunar will make you feel much better." Hearing this gave me a little boost of confidence and desire to make it. We couldn't have had that much further to go. I could have questioned why they weren't tired or thirsty but they were used to this probably, I wasn't.

"Uhhh, okay. Can I at least get some water? How much longer do we have left till we make it do you think?" I started getting light-headed.

Green Ranger spoke for the first time in a while, "We have a little longer to go. It would be wise if we kept moving. We've been lucky this whole time. It almost seems too easy."

* * *

It took us maybe thirty minutes longer and we finally arrived at our destination. I could now see that it was just as humungous as I perceived it to be while viewing from a distance. Everything looked to be made out of stone and two torches sat against the wall opposite from each other by the entrance. They were the only source of light now because we couldn't see the interior of the wall anymore and everything behind us was too dark to notice even a shadow, apparently there was no moon or it was in the new phase. The wall was massive and extended as far as I could see. It was hard to separate the door from the wall, the only way to tell was to notice the slight indention on the edges of the door.

Green Ranger knocked on the entrance door with her free hand and waited. We could hear groaning on the other side. Several seconds later a raspy male voice replied, "What's ya purpose here?"

"We're here to meet with the princess. She summoned us to meet with her in her quarters," Pyrona said to the person on the other side. Pyrona and Green Ranger walked up to the stone fifteen foot tall door.

They were standing right in front of the door when the man suddenly said with a little excitement in his voice, "Ahhh heroes. Welcome."

The double door opened ever so slowly while making a very loud noise. It reminded me of a heavy creaky old door with hinges that screech in a long empty hallway. The door echoed loudly into our ears as it was being opened. If anyone was sleep, they probably were awake now.

His head faced my direction, "Who's the lad with ya?"

"Oh he's our friend, Sharck," Pyrona said while adding "He needs to see the princess too."

"Well he doesn't look so good there. Is he going to be alright?"

"Huh? Why would you ask that?"

"Pyrona," Green Ranger beckoned her over to me.

The door was opened and suddenly I felt the more sicker. I couldn't stand any longer and knelt down. Before I knew it...

* * *

 **3rd person POV**

* * *

Sharck had fainted from overexerting himself. His body could no longer take it and demanded rest.

Pyrona rushed over to where Green Ranger held him and immediately thought the worst.

Green Ranger reassured her that it wasn't as bad as she thought, "He has a pulse. He's okay for now he just needed to rest. We should take him to Lunar as soon as possible though. His arm doesn't look good."

"Hurry! We can take him to the priestess, she'll know what to do," the guard decided quickly.

Sharck's arm had changed into a dark purple color around the laceration and had started to spread said color all around his entire arm.

Some of the night-owls were eavesdropping on the situation and stared on as the two women and guard rushed the sleeping man towards the one place where he could get the help he needed.

They came upon a shrine not too far from the entrance, a place the holy priestess spent most of her time. They quickly rushed the entrance with Pyrona yelling, "Hey Lunar, you here? I know it's really really late but we need your help fast."

The other two placed Sharck onto a bench and went to comforting him as he moved every so often in discomfort. The guard eventually left and wished the two ladies luck, he had to get back to his post. Seemingly minutes later an individual walks in the entrance with objects in hand. "I'll take it from here you two, you go on." Accompanied by these words was a woman in a long white bath robe with long white hair. Her hair extended all the way down to her achilles and was elegant, long, and swayed easily from side to side with a simple motion of her body. Her hair was white, but her body was young and her ears were long. She was an elf and was probably much older than she looked.

"Lunar!"

"Hi Pyrona, hi Green Ranger."

"Hey Lunar."

"Oh Lunar, we don't know what happened. Suddenly he fell down and hasn't woken back up. Is he going to be okay?"

"He seems like he'll make it but I won't know for sure until I thoroughly check him. Don't worry though, I'll take good care of him. I may be in training still but I have been practicing and studying well. I've improved quite a bit so relax. You guys have traveled quite a distance I'm sure. You're more than welcome to stay here and help me look after him if you wish."

"Oh thank you Lunar."

"Actually, I think we better get going." Green Ranger looked over to Pyrona and said, "He'll be okay now, we can focus on our purpose for coming to the castle in the first place." Pyrona disapproved but was persuaded to leave with her co-traveler.

"Come back tomorrow, he should be up by then," the priestess reassured them.

The two girls walked out leaving Sharck's life in the priestess's hands.

As they walked away Pyrona began to feel troubled. "You honestly think he'll be okay Greeny?

"I don't know."

"Ohhh." Pyrona couldn't contain her troubled emotion.

"Let's just come back in the morning like she said and trust that he'll be just fine. He was complaining about food and water and how tired he was the whole way here. He was exhausted apparently. What's troubling to me was his arm."

They walked away from the shrine and headed for the tower. Now that they were walking back through the same area they hurried through earlier, people stared at them. People were outside, some with their children, wondering what was going on and why heroes were arriving so late to the castle grounds. Something was up and they could tell. Green Ranger and Pyrona could hear some residents asking questions with concerns in their voice, "Daddy, what's going on?" "Are we going to be in danger soon?" "Why are they here?" "I thought Rose Knight was the only hero we had around anymore. And they have weapons?" "Dad, Mom, are we going to be okay?" "Who was that poor guy they brought in here?... Was he dead?... Did they kill him?" "No fool they are probably going to get info from him once they wake him up." "Didn't they take him to the priestess though?" As they walked along the path towards the tower they could hear bits and pieces of the conversations. They were the center of attention for the time being. It was still late at night and most of the residents were tired from the long day and some had decided to finally head to bed.

They made it to the tower that the princess was known to reside in. Inside the tower seemed even larger than when looking from outside. There weren't that many stairs, actually only three sets, each having tens of steps to reach the next floor. Each ceiling reached about forty feet from the floor. The few rooms were very spacious, almost as large as an auditorium that could seat a couple hundred people comfortably. Several torches were spread out throughout each floor lighting up the upper half more than the lower. A small hint of roses could be smelled throughout each hallway. It was getting stronger as they made their way up the stairs. As they looked out the large window engraved in the centermost portion of the second floor wall they could see a balcony that was only accessible through the window. They also noticed that they were already higher up than most buildings outside. They finally reached the third floor and walked for a little while before coming to a pink colored large door with a man standing in front of it.

"It took you two long enough," a man with spiky blond hair and bangs that went down the sides of his face smiled and said. He wore a simple cream colored t-shirt with two roses that formed a heart right over his chest area and some basic black night pants.

"Rosie!" Pyrona walked up to the man and gave him a greeting hug.

"Hey Rose Knight." Green Ranger waved her hand.

"Hello you two. Long time no see. How's the other side of these walls treating you?"

"Well, I've been doing really good and I picked up on my magic abilities. I've learned new tricks and I gained a lot of experience in my tribe," she said with a beaming smile expecting some congratulations. Rose Knight suddenly laughed. "Heyy, what's so funny?" she asked like a child being teased.

"Haha! I was expecting you to have your own magic circus rolling around by now, the way you used to play all those tricks on people. And you're still learning? What do you have left to learn, how to turn roses into daggers?" he jokingly asked.

"That's not fair. It's not easy you know. Maybe one day I'll show you just what I've been learning."

Rose Knight started to regain his composure, "No that's okay that's okay. So, you two ready to see the princess?"

"That's the only reason we are here Rose Knight," Green Ranger said flat out.

"Huh. You've grown alot more serious since the last time I saw you. Wanna tell me what happened?"

"Maybe later."

"Whatever. Alright go ahead, she's on the other side."

"You're not coming?" Pyrona asked.

"I already know what she's going to talk to you about, I was there. Go on. I'll be right out here in case you need me." He winked, though it went unnoticed.

"Ok. Come on Greeny."

* * *

The two opened the pink door and entered the room. The amount of pink in the room was a bit exaggerated in a way that made it seem like whoever decided on the room's color just went with one solid bright color for a girl. The wall on the left had designs of a family of three; a man, a woman, and a little pink haired girl. The next wall to the right held a very large window that one could get a pleasant view of the stars. Along the next wall was a large king size bed. Sitting on the bed was the princess herself, her hair longer than they last remembered and more rough and thicker around the edges. Her hair reached down to about mid-thigh, some of the length lying parallel to her leg on the bed, and completely covered her face as she faced downward. She wore a pink and white nightgown and was barefooted. She looked stressed and like she was deeply in thought before she realized the two heroes were standing there. "... Oh thank goodness you two are here. I'm afraid I have-" She noticed the heroes kneeling before her. "Guys get up please. There's no need for that, you've known me far too long for such formalities." They both rose up. "I'm afraid I have grave news to tell you." She waited for a response.

"What is it princess?" Both heroes said in unison and leaning forward as if to hear better.

"I went to the royal palace early yesterday." The heroes gasped. They both knew well how dangerous that place was to anyone after the Demon King captured it a long time ago.

"Are you okay princess?"

"I'm okay Green Ranger, but... but..." She choked.

"Princess."

"... I caused heroes to die. They came to rescue me and... and..." She started to sob.

"It's okay princess. We're here for you." Pyrona tried to comfort her by sitting next to her and embracing her.

"... Thanks." She started to calm down. "I should have never went but I had to see if my mom and dad were still alive. So I snuck out after ordering Rose Knight to go check with the guards to make sure my subjects and their families were okay. Once I reached outside the castle walls I made a run for the palace and knew too well how much danger I was running into. Still, I underestimated the demon lord. He knew I was on my way and set a trap. I was almost captured when heroes came along and distracted him long enough so that I could make my escape. I urged to stay and help fight but they all protested. Maybe they all would have made it if I would have just ran and tried not to help. Rose Knight was waiting for me outside the palace and we escaped. It was really hard to see heading back but we managed to make it." A long pause followed by a sigh. "I feel like a complete idiot now. I should have just stayed here. It would have been less troubling for everyone. I really appreciate you two for coming here." Another long pause. "I have a big favor to ask of you."

"Anything for you princess," Green Ranger said.

The princess appreciated this greatly. "I need you to go look for any survivors. I may have seen a few heroes lying on the ground motionless but I'm sure they weren't all killed. I strongly feel that Atalanta is still alive. If she is, bring her back to me please. Knowing the demon lord, he won't kill her if he knows I'll go back looking for her. He won't expect me to send you three though." Instead of questioning her reasoning for sending them on such a suicidal mission, they wondered why she said three instead of two. They turned around to notice Rose Knight standing right behind them with a sheepish grin on his face.

"Don't worry princess, we'll have her back before you can say 'Rose Knight is the best looking man on the planet'. Actually, we'll take a little longer so that you can finish that statement." The girls rolled their eyes.

The princess whole-heartily thanked the trio and then asked them nicely to excuse themselves so that she may relax. They all obliged and left her alone.

"Well, I'm very glad this is not a one-man mission anymore. Haha." Rose Knight said this to deaf ears.

The two girls were exhausted and ready to sleep wherever they could find some comfort. They knew they only had a few more hours before the sun would rise and they would be off on their mission to save Atalanta and any other heroes who might've been alive. The princess told them that they could stay the night in the tower and they did just that. They found a room with two beds and slept there. The day tomorrow was to be another full one.

* * *

Lunar was hard at work with trying to cure Sharck's illness. She found out that it was poison in his cut arm that would soon take over his nervous system if she didn't act fast. By taking over the nervous system, his body would start to act on its own and eventually destroy itself. She knew her time was limited and began working as fast as she could. She prayed to Lunaria and asked the moon goddess for her healing powers to help with this occasion. She was still fairly new to this type of illness. Most of time she would heal a scrape, a broken bone, an infection, or something else that's of more natural causes. She didn't usually deal with the kind of dark poisoning that Sharck had somehow been affected by. For this one, and because of the amount of time she had left, she relied on the goddess for help.

Sharck had suffered severly since making it to the castle. He was now starting to twitch violently and started swinging his arms in her direction as if the cause of the pain was coming from her. He even had involuntary outbursts and would yell or holler while trying to fight. He was still unconcious but his body had chosen to fight. She needed a way to restrain him without getting too close. Her healing spell would not be as effective with him moving wildly, and with how bad the poison had spread through his body, she needed every ounce of power she could muster. She knew she was running out of time and hesitated to act at first. She knew how much danger she was putting herself in by allowing him to survive much longer in the state he was in. She started to second-guess her abilities and contemplated ending his suffering right then. Then she realized how worried Pyrona was, and even Green Ranger showed a little concern, of this person. She gained determination, grabbed her staff and jumped on top of Sharcks body, something she was told not to do when faced with a situation like the one she was currently in. She tried to keep him pinned down so he wouldn't move so much. His movements became more vigorous after feeling her body against his. She realized her rash decision and was scared with what would happen next. She closed her eyes and put all her might into holding him down. Sharck's body did react, but then it stopped. Realizing this was her chance, she quickly chanted the spell, "Lunaria, lend me your strength so that I may cure this poor body and make it what it once was before corruption. I call upon the power of the moon goddess! Let me cure him!" She slid her hand up to the neck of her staff and placed the head right above Sharck's wounded area. The staff started to glow and she could feel some of her energy starting to leave her. His arm started to glow as well and gave off a green hue. Lunar concentrated as hard as she could and could visibly see Sharck's arm ridding itself of the purple tint.

Something strange started to happen however. The purple color turned into a gaseous matter and formed a dark floating figure. It was getting bigger and bigger until it completely left Sharck's arm. It formed a face of a creature with rows of sharp teeth and bright yellow eyes, everything still in a gas phase. It smiled at Lunar and caused an immense chill to go down her back and then flew away out of the shrine. She had no idea what it was but she had never seen anything like it before.

After almost a minute, the spell was done and the priestess layed her head on Sharck's chest. She was exhausted and almost fell asleep until she realized how awkward it would've been if he had woken up to her lying on top of him. At worst she would have been labeled a creep, but she was more respectful than that. She waited and listened for a bit. He wasn't moving but he had a heartbeat and felt very warm. She took a look at his arm and it was no longer any color but it's rightful one, every trace of the poison was gone. The priestess couldn't help but feel a little worried when she remembered the dark shadowy figure that came out of Sharck's body. She wondered what it was and how he even managed to get it in him.

She felt weak and rolled off of his body and started to walk away to go take a nap. She needed to rest now and for a good reason, Sharck was going to live.

* * *

 **Sharck's POV**

* * *

I only remember falling down and Green Ranger heading towards me. All of a sudden, I was lying on a bed in the middle of a room. I could see outside, it looked like the sun had risen a few moments ago. I heard noise coming from people outside in the distance, no doubt they were up to start their daily activities. I got up not without grimacing from my aching muscles. It felt like I had just come from my first football practice back in high school. I then realized that my arm was back to its old self again. Somehow resting must have been all I needed, though I can't help but feel it was more than that. My cut was surprisingly completely gone. I checked my arm more thoroughly, not even a small scar. What did this mean? How was this even possible? While being in this world though, I started to realize just how possible impossible was.

I noticed a staff lying on the floor next to the bed I rested on. It had a crescent that sat on top with a light blue colored gem in the middle. I jumped off the bed, not without pain, and went for the staff. "Hmm, what is this doing here? Seems like something Pyrona would know about since she has a staff of her own." I thought out loud to myself. I started to walk around this place while getting a feel for my surroundings. This building seemed very well put together although there was no door leading to the outside which signified I wasn't really in a private area. Every side was open to the outside except one wall. A little room sat next to the area I awoke. I walked up to the door and noticed that it was cracked open. I opened it to see what was inside. There was nothing but what appeared to be another bed and a white bath robe thrown on the ground. There was also another little door going into what I guess to be another room. I walked up to that one and noticed that it was closed. Since it was closed I figured the best thing to do was to knock and make sure no one was on the other side first. "Ah what the hell, why not." I disregarded my first thought and reached for the doorknob and turned the handle slowly.

This was a bathroom with a tub and a sink. The tub was filled with water and it smelled refreshing. Steam was still rising from the surface. Someone must have been here not too long ago, or did they leave the water here for me? I saw no towel or washcloth and I highly doubted I would see one anyway. On the other side of the bathroom was the toilet. It was very simple at best but convenient at the time because my body needed to get rid of some waste. What I didn't understand was why no one was here. Where was Pyrona and Green Ranger? Had they already met with the princess? I left the bathroom as I decided that using it further may be a disrespectful act to someone's property and I didn't want to cause any trouble. So, I figured I'd leave and go look for the girls.

"Ahh," I hissed as I walked outside and my eyes were introduced to the sun's rays. I shielded them to allow a safe adjustment to the sudden brightness I had just entered. Once my eyes adjusted I looked upon a gorgeous sight. Within the castle walls was a complete opposite of what it was like on the outside. There were vendors all over the place and multiple little camp sites around and huts and tents covered the sides of the walkway. Many people were at work early in the morning buying, selling, chasing little thieves. Kids were running around chasing each other and some were off to the side plotting. People glanced at me, probably because I wasn't from here, but no one really seemed to care much more than just getting a good look at me. Compared to outside of these walls, the inside seemed pretty nice and carefree.

"Hi." A little boy came up to me. I was zoned out trying to soak up this one-of-a-kind scene in front of me. I never saw anything like this ever. I was inside of castle walls and witnessing the daily activities of its residents. I eventually broke free of my trance though, not before getting another greeting.

"Hey Mister... Are you okay?"

I shook my thoughts out of my head. "Oh, yeah. Hi, nice to meet you. Huh, what can I do for you?"

The boy laughed. "You talk funny. My momma told me that you not from around here, but you look like a human to me, just with different clothes and a funny way of talking. What's your name Mister?"

I hesitated because this child was bold to walk up to a strange man and be so calm. A woman was staring at me with a certain look that told me she was ready to take action if necessary for this child's safety. "I'm Sharck. What's your name little guy?"

He positioned himself to perform a heroic pose with his hands on his hips and then took one hand and poked his chest with his thumb, "My name is Brawn and I'm training to be a hero like Mr. Rose Knight. I want to protect the princess too!"

"Oh is that so? Why do you need to protect the princess?"

"Cause everyone here knows that her parents were taken away so she needs people to take care of her just in case the bad guy tries and take her too. I won't let him though. I'll go 'zaaw!' 'poom!' 'pow!' and beat him up like this." He started punching and kicking the air.

I laughed. "Oh, watch it you may harm someone." I watched him attack the air for a couple moments and then said, "It's good the princess is loved so much."

"Oh really? Well, that's not the ONLY reason why I want to defeat the big bad guy."

"Huh. Can I ask you something Brawn?"

"Sure Mr. Sharck."

"Who is the princess? I mean what is she like exactly?"

He gasped and showed me a strange face, "She's only the most prettiest bestest girl in the whole world! When I get older, I'm going to beat the Demon King and then marry her." He blushed a bit. "Where did you come from Mr. Sharck?"

"I am from a far far far away place, so far that I don't know how to get back." I could tell he was trying to figure out what I was talking about. "Do you know how I could meet with the princess? I heard she may know something about why I'm here."

He lit up and exclaimed, "The princess knows who you are? That's so cooool! I want to be able to meet her too." His head tilted and he frowned. "Awww man. You're going to try and defeat the Demon King so that she marries you aren't you? That's no fair! I wish she knew me." He hung his head below his shoulders.

I put my hands up with my arms parallel to the ground and waved them from side to side. "Haha. That's not why I want to meet with her. I was told that I should from some... Uhhh... Friends. They told me that she may know how I can get back home."

"Who are your friends?"

"Uhhh... very... strong... people." I didn't know how to describe them in a short time.

"Oh like heroes?"

"Uhh... yeah. Actually, now that I think about it I need to find them as well."

I was going to keep talking but was interrupted by Brawn when he shrugged his shoulders. "It's okay. I get it. You are a nice guy so you deserve to have a pretty lady like the princess." His mood lightened up a little as he whiped his little nose. "Well, I'll just have to try and find someone else."

He didn't really pay attention to what I was trying to say about Pyrona and Green Ranger. "I just need to see her and try and understand everything that's all. Don't worry, I don't have any intentions of taking her away from you."

"Ah... well... she stays in that tower over there if you really want to go see her." He pointed at the tallest building within the castle walls.

I looked up at the tower and noticed it stood out from the rest of the area. Apparently if I wanted to meet with the princess, I was going to have to go to that tower. I wanted to meet with her; I had to know why I was transferred to this world and how long I was to remain here. If she really did know anything, then I had no choice.

"Brawn!" A woman called the little boy over.

"Coming Momma! I have to go Mr. Sharck. See you later and good luck!" He waved to me as he ran off towards his mother.

People started gathering around me and looking up towards the tower. Some armored guy was standing in the front of the tower on what looked like a small balcony placed about forty feet up. More and more people came up and gathered around.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages. We have a special announcement from the princess this morning. I ask that you all remain quiet so you do not miss any important information. Now, I present to you, Princess Lizeea!" The crowd clapped and cheered. There was no longer an uninterrupted path for me to walk through. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to come over and have a listen. The man put his arm out to the side and started backing away slowly while bowing. Everyone in front of me started kneeling down. I looked around to see everyone all around me had knelt down on one knee and faced downward. I realized that this was probably custom so I quickly knelt down too.

A female voice started to speak. "Thank you all. I do not deserve so much of your respect." Her voice sounded young. "I am one of you and shouldn't be treated so different. Please, stand on your two feet and don't be afraid to look at me." I heard shifting and people started to stand up. I eventually followed. We all stared upward to see a girl dressed in a pink and white dress. Her hair was long and all pink. The distance didn't really allow me to see her face that good. "As you all know we are at war with the Demon King and his group of demons." She spoke surprisingly loud for her to be as far away as she was. I could hear her clearly. "They have taken our king and queen, my father and mother, away from us and expect us to do nothing about it. They expect us to just sit around and mope hoping that they will bring them back to us. No, I say we go and take them back! I'm done playing games with the Demon King! He thinks he can take everything away from us and leave us with nothing! We are running out of resources. Our children and elders are becoming sicker by the day. Our muscles need food. We shouldn't have to depend on what little we do have. There's so much more outside of these walls but we can't reach them without putting ourselves in grave danger. Everyday since the Demon took over has been a struggle for survival. We've lost the lives of many since this war started and it won't end until we stop it ourselves. We will get back what's ours and defeat him once and for all!" People started cheering.

"I only ask for your forgiveness. I acted very foolish yesterday and tried something on my own. I tried to fight the Demon King." People were visually shocked at this but remained silent. "Yes, I tried to go to the royal palace and bring our king and queen back to us. I failed horribly and in the process some heroes sacrificed their safety for mines. I am sorry for my ignorance. But I wll not allow this to happen again! I ask for your trust in our ability to succeed. I have three heroes here with me today." Three figures walked up behind her. I immediately recognized Pyrona and Green Ranger. There was a blond guy with them. "Yes, you all already know of Rose Knight and his services to our land over the years. Now, we also have the lovely mage Pyrona whose magic skills are the best in the land and one of the best archers Green Ranger who is impossible to get near when she draws her bow." The crowd clapped. "With the help of these three we will finally end this senseless war and get back to what we know and love so much. Peace!" The crowd went into an uproar. These people seemed physically weak but they definitely had plenty of spirit in them. "Thank you all."

People started walking away and going back to their normal daily lives. It almost seemed like they didn't believe her, even though they cheered. Maybe the princess's anouncement was nothing more than just a show.

I stayed still and let the crowd disperse from around me. I looked back up on the balcony and had noticed that Pyrona was looking right at me. She waved her hand and yelled my name and then vanished. Green Ranger saw me too but didn't acknowledge me. The princess and the blond guy stood right beside her and stared at me. Green Ranger faced them and then they all walked back into the tower.

"Sharcky!" I looked down to see Pyrona charging towards me. My eyes probably widened as I noticed her momentum was too great for her to not ram into me. How in the world did she get down here so fast anyway? I could have easily dodged to the side but I sorta welcomed it. She ran into me easily knocking me down. "You're okay! You're okay!" She held me real tight squeezing my ribs and causing me a little bit of pain. I laughed though because I could feel how happy she was. "You had us worried last night." She looked at my arm and smiled. "You're cured!"

"Ugh, yeah but... could you get up please?" I said while still being squeezed.

"Oh sorry." She let go of me and stood up allowing me to get up. "You have to come see the princess. I told her all about you."

"You... you did?"

"Yeah, she wants to meet with you."

"She does? Well, I don't know if I should right now. She just gave a speech and is probably trying to relax afterwards."

"Oh don't be so silly Sharcky. She wouldn't mind."

"You sure?"

"Yes. I don't mind." The answer came from behind Pyrona and it was the girl. The girl that was just standing on the balcony; the princess. "Nice to meet you Sharck. I've heard so much about you."

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Well, this one was a bit longer and I hope to start making longer chapters like this from here on out. Hmm, not sure what the princess has in mind for Sharck. I guess we'll find out in the next chapter.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	4. Four There Are

**Disclaimer: I only own Sharck. I do not own any other character or setting in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade.**

 **Author's Notes: I actually thought this was going to be a little longer than this but I got tired of staring at it and I wanted to hurry up and get it done so I uploaded it at a cost of not making it too long. Please enjoy. :)**

* * *

Brawn was right, the princess was a pretty girl, with her long pink hair, her light blue eyes, and her pink lips and rosy cheeks. She looked about the youngest out of everyone I've seen up till now not counting the little boy. She wore a pink and white princess dress, the pink on her dress darker than her hair. She had a red neck band wrapped tightly around her neck, pink lipstick on her little lips, and a tiara that sat on top of her head. Her eyes were fixated onto me like she was intrigued in something she knew nothing about and had just discovered for the first time. Being in her presence made me feel like I was closer to the ground. Even though she was so young, probably a little younger than me, I still felt like I needed to have common knowledge about respecting royalty when facing her. A real live princess and her attention was on me.

"Hi Princess... uhhh," I said as I lowered my head and bowed mad at myself for not already knowing her name.

"Lizeea. It's okay, I don't expect you to know my name already."

"Nice to meet you Princess Lizeea." She smiled. I started feeling uncomfortable while everyone stared at me.

"You look famished. I'm going to have lunch soon at the guild hall, you're more than welcome to come. All the brave heroes are always welcome." She looked at me up and down.

I felt I wasn't supposed to look at her so I kept my eyes aiming downward. "Sure, and thank you Your Highness." I was very hungry AND thirsty now that she mentioned it. I never did get any nutrition last night.

"Good. I look forward to seeing you again soon then." As she started leaving, the blond guy gave me a nod and then turned around and followed her. He looked pretty strong and well equipped with armor that covered his whole body. Even the areas that weren't covered by plated armor were covered by charcoal colored chainmail. The armor was silver with gold outlinings, matching his golden hair that went straight back from his face giving him a spiky look with two bangs on each side of his face. His eyes were light blue like the princess's. The only parts of his body that weren't covered in his medieval looking armor were his head and hands. He even wore a silver colored cloth that rested on his shoulders and covered his entire back. He was dressed way too much for a simple lunch, that's for sure. He even had a sword on his side but I couldn't get a good enough look at it to determine how big and what shape it was. The young princess stopped and said something back towards us, "Make sure you two are there as well." The girls both gave a nod and the princess turned back around and continued walking towards the tower. The man followed her still only walking slowly.

"Well Sharcky you ready to eat? After we eat we get to have some real fun."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we get to go on a quest and go save some survivors at the royal palace. It's our mission and it'll be a real adventure. I was going to keep that a secret and let the princess tell you but I couldn't hold it in any longer. I'm just so excited." She held her hands up to her mouth and started shaking and shrieking from pure excitement.

"Calm down Pyrona. We haven't even left yet. And besides, Sharck is not coming with us." Pyrona immediately stopped moving and looked at Green Ranger. "Don't worry, we'll do just fine without him," she said accustomed with her usual attitude.

"That doesn't seem right Greeny," Pyrona put her hand on her chin as she thought about what was just said. "We should take him with us, he'll only help."

"You mean like he helped himself with that skeleton by almost getting killed?"

"Well, no that was because he was taking it easy on him. Right Sharcky?"

"I'm still trying to figure that situation out."

"Well I still think you should go Sharcky and that's that. Besides, I don't think you will have a choice."

"What do you mean?"

"Uhhh, you'll see," she shrugged.

"Well, why do you guys have to go over there anyways? Didn't the princess just come from over there? Why is she making such a fast decision on going back?"

"If you would have payed attention you would have heard her mention her reasons, but it's not important to you since you won't be going. Just know that she has her reasons and they're neither something you would understand nor something you should concern yourself with."

"... Well, can you at least stay and help me talk to Princess Lizeea before you go so I can finally leave? I'm ready to go. I really enjoyed your company and wouldn't mind hanging with you two some more but I have to get back to my own place. I only have to ask her a few questions, but I'm not confident enough to do that on my own honestly. Besides, I thought my only reason for coming here was to speak with her."

"That and to keep you from dying," Pyrona giggled while adding in.

"We're going to go eat too. You'll be able to talk with her then. And that wasn't my idea. Thank Pyrona."

"Huh?"

"She was the one who wanted to save you and she was the one who asked the princess to invite you over to eat." Pyrona smiled at me to confirm that this was true.

"Well thanks. Thanks for saving me and healing me. I really appreciate it."

"Oh that wasn't me Sharcky, that was Lunar who cured you. It's said that she has a special thing for sick people." She winked and softly jabbed me on the leg with the bottom of her staff as she said this. Just then I remembered that I did wake up in a strange place, and there was a staff lying right next to me that wasn't Pyrona's.

"You can probably see her once we leave."

"Greeny I think you might have missed some extra information fro-"

"Not now Pyrona. I'm actually feeling a little too hungry for this right now. We need to head to the guild hall before we're late."

"Well... Okay."

We headed straight for the guild hall, which like the tower, was one of the tallest buildings within the castle walls. This building was in its own area for the most part. It had its dirt, statues of what I'm guessing to be historical figures, and lots of training facilities, each fenced in their own little areas. It looked like a place where warriors-in-training would reside and hone their skills to become true fully capable warriors. I noticed dummies, gear, weapons, targets, and crystal balls in some areas, some areas had obstacle courses with traps and dangerous looking spikey balls that sat hanging in the air, and then there was a little dirt pit that sat in the middle of it all. It was big enough to fit several people in and they could run circles around each other and it was surrounded by gates that looked like possible entry-ways, the only way in without jumping anyway. This was all outside of the actual building of the guild hall. We had been walking past all of this before entering the tall stoned building.

The inside was a lot bigger than I could comprehend by looking from the outside. There was no way to tell just how big it actually was in the guild hall, but I knew the ceilings were high and everything looked to be made out of some form of stone. The floor was formed by large slabs of it, squared columns that changed into hexagons that widened at the top until merging at the ceiling were not few and some had torches on them and others had banners, and the large staircase leading up that was the centerpiece of it all... Man there was so much to take in here. To the left was a room filled with bookshelves stacked with books and another staircase that led downstairs, the aura here was very calm and not offensive at all, a good place to relax no doubt. In front of here was a rounded squared extrusion with an eight-pointed star a few feet in the center, and in the star was a circular outing that four circles attached by four lines were engraved. To the right was just a window that welcomed the sun into the room. It was rather large and sat a long distance away because in between it and me was a grand table that stretched lengths. I'm guessing more than thirty people could sit comfortably here. In the middle was the big staircase leading upward, and right in front of the staircase was another floor design that easily attracted my attention. The design was diamond shaped out‑gravings at the edge of each point of one big diamond that held four smaller circles, one big circle with the smaller three symmetrically in the middle. It made me think of a magic circle.

The amount of people was not too impressive but enough to make it known that the guild hall was indeed an active one.

I started looking for the princess as she was the main reason I came here. "BERRGH!" Haha, on second thought...

"Wow, somebody's hungry." Pyrona heard the sound of my stomach.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to go ahead and eat. But where do I sit?"

"Over there with the princess of course."

Oh no. I could see where she was but I didn't want to sit next to her. That would just be too much pressure. I wasn't going to get to enjoy eating in this case.

I heard a sigh come from behind me and turned around to see Green Ranger already walking towards the table where Her Highness sat. "It shouldn't matter where we eat guys, we'll get the same food."

"Leave it to Greeny."

The people didn't seem like heroes much to be honest. Actually, some of them were familiar looking to the folks I saw outside before heading this way. Maybe this was a recruiting lunch.

The princess's eyes lit up as she caught us in her sights. "Ahh yes, you made it. Thanks for coming." Pyrona gave her a hug and sat down along with me and Green Ranger. "So, you already know what you can have, dig in."

I felt like something was a bit too informal with this. "Uhhh, excuse me but... are we not supposed to wait for a toast or a special speech before we eat?"

"For what?"

"Uhhh... I... don't know."

"Well, that seems boring and besides, this is a normal lunch, not some special dinner."

Green Ranger questioned, "Where are the other heroes Princess? I thought for sure there were more heroes here the last time we were here. What exactly happened since then?"

The princess frowned before saying, "Everyone left Green Ranger. They left just like you two." She glanced at Pyrona. "I was saddened at first but I understood that you all had your own agendas back from whence you came. Rose Knight was the only one that decided to stay here and I thank him everyday for it. He has always been here to protect this kingdom and everyone in it." I could sense some bitterness in her voice. "If it wasn't for him we would have been whiped out a long time ago. That damned Demon King got what's coming to him, that's for sure." There was a moment of silence as she gripped her utensil real tight and then relaxed and sighed. "... Anyways, because I had this guild hall but no one here to use it anymore I decided to just have lunch here every-so-often and let whoever can eat eat."

"I'm sorry Princess, I would have stay-"

"It's okay I completely understand now as I did then, there's no need to apologize. You had a family of your own to take care of Green Ranger and I should always respect that. That's why I'm glad you have come back to me after so many years." Her mood lightened. "Now, let's discuss this quest of yours. I know I have already told you what I want you to do but I feel I should go over everything again because I added one important detail. I want you to travel to the royal palace and retrieve captured survivors from our previous mission. If you can find my mother and father that would be great, and if you can kill the Demon King, that would earn you anything you want forever from me. Now, I know that this is going to be tough and you may not find anyone and come back empty-handed but it will not have been a waste. We will know that there are no survivors and that's just how it may be. Also, as you all know, this mission is not a peaceful one. There will be fighting most likely once you enter and there may be foes before you get to the royal palace. As heroes, every mission may be your last and most of you are not new to this possibility. If you do not wish to proceed then you are free to walk out now." She looked at everyone and gave each person a chance to speak up. When she looked at me she narrowed her eyes and lingered her stare for a little longer. I wasn't going anyway so it shouldn't have mattered how I felt. After no one said a word she smiled big and gave a sigh of relief, "Whew! I thought you were going to walk out on me after that last part. Thanks guys, you really have no idea how much this means to know this kingdom still has your loyalty."

Green Ranger spoke up, "Well I do have a question Your Highness. Everything you said just now seems to be the same as before. What is this 'one important detail' that you mentioned earlier?"

"Oh, THAT important detail is right in front of you."

"Pyrona?"

"No, him," the princess pointed towards me as she replied.

I turned around thinking there was someone behind me. Nope. Damn it. "Actually Your Highness I was only here to ask you a question."

"Oh, and what would that be?"

"How do I get back home from here?"

"Home? Is that not something you should be worried about after you get back?"

"Well, I am not going on the mission, I just came here to find out how to get back to where I came from."

"Where did you come from?"

"..." I didn't really know how to explain the whole situation or where I came from. Now that I thought about it, how could I make it back to somewhere I don't remember leaving from. I know that I was in a different place but how could I explain that in a way that she would be able to tell me where to go? This question was too vague to ask the way I did and I didn't want to get into too much detail, so I couldn't answer her.

"A little memory loss? Well I heard that you are a really noble hero who came from a place not too far away from Pyrona and Green Ranger, wherever that is. I don't know much about you besides what I've been told but if my most faithful can trust you then I don't see why I can't."

"Uhh yeah about that, ummm, how did you hear about me exactly? I am not- Ahhh!"

"Sharcky here is puzzled about the fact that he is known about all the way out here even." Someone had hit me under the table and left a sting on my leg. Green Ranger looked at me as if she wanted me to stop talking and Pyrona had a smile on her face that said she was up to no good, so I couldn't tell who hit me.

"Well, I'm glad you came to help as they will need you on their journey."

"Wait, what?"

"You didn't object earlier and since you came here to hear about the mission I know you will accompany them. Thanks Sharck."

"Huh!? No no no no no, I came to figure out how to get to- Owww!"

"He came to figure out how to get to the royal palace since you never mentioned it. And you know what Princess, he's right, you haven't told us how to get to the palace."

The princess looked at me strange for a moment probably trying to figure out why I was in pain. "Ah... my apologies. I don't actually know how to get there. I was fortunate to find it when I did. I tried many times and failed many times. It's something that just has to happen when it happens. That's why I want you all to go and look for it. If you don't happen to find it within the next few days, please come back. Even you all can't last out there too long."

After a moment Green Ranger stood up, "I think we heard enough. Princess I think we understand everything now. If you don't mind we will be taking off. Please excuse us."

"One more thing before you go. There is equipment upstairs down the hall. Everything you will need, bags, gear, weapons, food and snacks, water, and more. Take everything you think you will need. Rose Knight will accompany you as you already know and he will be waiting for you at the exit. Oh and Green Ranger..."

"Yes?"

"Lead your team to victory." Green Ranger's eyes widened after hearing this and she gave the princess a nod.

The three of us walked up the big stairs and went up towards the right; there was a way to the left as well but it was dark and unapproachable. After walking up the stairs and coming to the second floor, there were a few rooms on each side of the hallway. Amazingly, the items in each room was well put together and a guard stood in front of each one. They didn't do anything aside from giving us side glances as we walked past them. Pyrona and I wandered around amazed at everything like an animal-loving child visiting a zoo for the first time. Green Ranger just simply started grabbing items. Most of the items looked like they were just for appearance purposes and seemed pretty useless for a battlefield. Earrings, headbands, necklaces, swords, helmets, cloaks, shields, and so much more sat in one room. I didn't see Green Ranger walk in here but Pyrona grabbed a couple earrings, a necklace, and a little orange charm. The next room had food, but mostly in the form of canned vegetables and bloody carcusses. There was also a ton of bread around. I was starting to get a weird feeling about all of this. What was the point of having all this prepared for us if we were to come back whenever we wanted to? It was a little too close to the feeling of having a "last meal". We all grabbed something from this room that we feel would last for at least a few days.

The next room held a few big sheets of cloth. "What are these?"

"They're mats Sharcky. For sleeping on."

"Oh."

The mats looked very uncomfortable but were very light and easy to carry.

Green Ranger was waiting on us to finish as she stopped collecting things already. "You guys do realize that the more you carry the less you'll be able to move around right?"

"Ya never know Greeny." Pyrona grabbed a couple more things and walked out of the room smiling. "Look what I found guys." We turned to look at her and saw that she held in her hands a dark round stuffed animal. "It's a black sheep." I couldn't help but laugh. "I know Sharcky, she's so cute you can't help but feel a little tingling in your stomach." It was an adorable little thing.

"How did you find that, I didn't see any rooms with stuffed animals."

"Oh, I don't know but she was just sitting right under the table in the last room."

"That's odd. But hey, at least you have a little friend now."

"Yeah, I know. She'll help us on our quest."

"How do you know that's not a boy?"

"... Because she's a sheep silly." Pyrona looked at me with a face that told me she knew I didn't think her answer was a good one.

I walked up to her and petted the cute stuffed creature wrapped closely to her bosom, "Welcome to the group little... uhh, sheep."

"Awww, that's so sweet Sharcky."

"Are you two done yet or should I go take a nap?"

"We're coming Greeny."

We left the upstairs and went down to the first floor where we had eaten. The princess and most of everyone else had already left. We made our way to the exit.

We went past all the training facilities outside then something strange caught my attention. "Hey, how come there's no grass around here?"

"The resources have been very limited since the Demon King has made the outside walls a living hell. Even sources such as water is scarce now. What bothers me though is that the people don't seem awake around here. Not one person spoke to any of us as we sat at the table." Green Ranger must have been thinking about this for a while.

"Yeah, even the princess seems a little strange since we last saw her."

"Hmmm... Anyhow, we need to get going. Let's hurry up and catch up to Rose Knight so we can finally leave."

As we were on our way to the exit of the castle we didn't run into anybody. It's as if everyone had disappeared or turned in for the day.

"There he is! Heeey Rosie!"

He looked up and waved back. Then he started to laugh. "You all came over here like you were about to come after me. Well..." He jumped off the ledge he was sitting on. "Alright, let's get this journey started." He focused his eyes on me. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "You ladies taking a stray with you or what?"

"Oh he's not a stray silly, he's going to help us defeat Demon."

"Pfff! Yeah alright... Whatever, the more the merrier. Shall we get going then?" The two girls gave a nod. "Alright then John, open up the gate!" He spoke loudly across the big door.

"Ye got it Rose Knight," the guard responded.

After making a lot of loud noises, the gate was finally open.

"May the angels be with ya. Good luck to you brave heroes and make it back in one piece. We'll be waiting on ya," the guard yelled to our backs as we walked off. We knew where we wanted to go, where we would end up was anybody's guess. With Green Ranger steering our little quad-team we were bound to do good for sure I hoped.

* * *

Now, I never agreed to going on this journey and I could easily back down right now and just try and find my way back home. But then I thought about one thing, where would I go? I didn't know how to get back to where I was when I first got here because it was dark last time I traveled, and I still can't make out the details as to why I was brought here and who or what decided to "summon" me here. I was attacked by something I have never seen in real life and I almost died, if I had not gotten saved by the two ahead of me. I've seen enough movies and read enough stories to know that things like this usually happen to someone who is bored with their life and is suddenly thrown into some crazy wild situations. I was okay with my life and I had fun every week, so why me? What was I going to do? There were questions I needed answered, but unlike a lazy student who just asked questions to get out of thinking for his- or herself, I am going to find clues on my own and then figure it out. This may be the dumbest thing to do because maybe someone knew about why I was going through this and I could easily fix this just by asking. Maybe I was still just dreaming a realistically long dream. Was I dead maybe? It didn't matter honestly and I shouldn't let it get to me. This was my life for now and I should simply adapt and try my best at whatever I'm going to be doing while here. As for right now, I'll go along with this driven out nightmare and figure out what to do from here.

"Is he stuck? Maybe the poor guy is having second thoughts. Hey!"

I hadn't realized I was daydreaming this whole time and had been left behind only for the blond guy and Pyrona to come back and snap me out of it. "Huh? Oh, right... I'm ready for this." I took a deep breath, swallowed the knot that was formed in my throat, and I started walking.

The man guffawed, "This is supposed to be a hero, somebody who can help us? Don't make me laugh! Oh wait, it's too late! I'm already laughing!" He continued laughing.

Pyrona didn't find any of it amusing. "Don't make fun of him Rosie. He's not used to this place yet, and he's not used to this. Just give him some time. Geez."

"He's not a little boy he should be able to speak for himself. Besides, he's been with you ladies all day, that's plenty of time for him to get used to anything." He walked up behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder. His restrainability was minimum and my whole body leaned over as it was jerked to the side. "Look, I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm the best guy around here, just stay with me and you'll survive. I can protect you like I protect everyone else. My name is Rose Knight but you can call me 'Sir Saviour the Fifteenth' because that's probably how many times I'll be saving you." He released his hand from my shoulder as he started laughing again. He looked at me up and down. "And what's this? Where's your weapon? What are you even, a mage? You look so weak and frail you must be. Haha. I can't believe the princess sent you with us."

"She didn't send him, he came on his own. He's better than you think he is Rosie so stop picking on him."

"And what's this Pyrona? Why are you speaking for him? Can he not talk for himself? Hey! What's your name?"

"It's Sharck."

He raised both of his golden eyebrows, "Ohh, so you can talk huh. Well," he held out his hand, "Nice to meet ya Sharck." I shook his hand to get an overbearing handshake that caused me to wrinkle my face. He smirked and said, "You're so damn weak it's a shame. I guess the princess believes we need a handicap against us. This should still be fun I guess... Hey Pyrona! How about we make a bet."

"About what?"

"Let's see how long it takes before he gets destroyed by some enemy. I'll say one hundred gold on not even six hours." He laughed out loud.

"That's not funny Rosie. Why are you being so mean to him?" He just laughed out louder in response.

"Enough! Let's go." Green Ranger had walked back to us already showing displeasure in us three.

Rose Knight stopped laughing and shrugged before saying, "This isn't going to get any better if we don't make fun of the situation you know."

"There is no 'situation'. We just do what we were asked and that's it. No need to make this more difficult than it is."

He narrowed his eyes at her, "Hmph. Now that you are all grown you think you can just boss everyone around huh? Never forget to have fun, it makes it easier to deal with. I was just kidding Sharck, no need to take me so seriously." He walked passed her. Pyrona walked passed her too, not before smiling and whispering something to her. Green Ranger slowly shook her head at this.

The others walked past her and left her alone with me. As I started to walk and catch up to them she put her hand up for me to stop. "Listen, you can leave now. You don't have to come with us.

"Huh? No I'm fine, I don't let stuff like that get to me."

"That's not what I mean. I know the princess wants you to come with us but it would be better if you walked off and went back to safety since you were safest there. Out here, you'll find yourself fighting to stay alive a lot and there will be situations where you will feel like it's not worth trying to fight anymore and at this point you will jump at the chance of getting killed. I don't know how you are on the battlefield and I don't want you to lose your life for nothing, especially when there's a different option. If you feel it's something you can't handle then turn back now. You can't have any doubts, and we don't need any dead weight with us right now."

"..." I was surprised at what she had said to me and for the most part, I do agree with her. It would be wasteful for me to come along if I'm just going to end up getting in the way or dying even. Rose Knight was right, I was having second thoughts about this trip and I may regret not turning around just then even when Green Ranger spared me the embarassment and shame of making such a decision of walking out on them in front of the other two. I appreciated this but I couldn't turn around, and I didn't know why. I only saw forward, there just was no turning around now. She waited for me to respond and I did, "... Okay." I walked around her to catch up with the others. I heard her curse as I left her alone.

* * *

We had been walking for what felt like over a couple hours. Nothing crazy happened. At this point I was so relaxed I don't think I could have possibly been scared if something jumped out at me. My reaction would be too slow for sure. Pyrona kept beside me for most of the time and Rose Knight walked off to the side not really being a part of the group. Green Ranger stayed in the front and listened for whatever may have been around, which was nothing. She did happen to catch a few animals that were on a stroll but nothing that would make me second-guess or worry for my life about coming along. Even still, the mood was ominous, like we were being watched and a trap was being planted craftly as we walked so carelessly.

Green Ranger spoke out, "There's fog up ahead."

"Yeah, I can see it Greeny. That means we are about to walk somewhere unknown right?"

"Yes, so everyone stay close... Rose Knight. Rose Knight?"

"I'm right here beautiful don't worry. You should be more concerned about him over there."

They all looked at me, "I'm fine don't worry." Physically I was but memories were coming back to me about what happened last time I was close to the fog like this. It spooked me for a moment.

"Well, let's go."

We all walked through the fog together real close. Everyone stayed in sight at all times. The air started bringing back memories and my lungs were in a fight taking a beating again. It was definitely more bearable this time around but it was still a nuisance. I coughed a couple times and that was it. Luckily after only about fifteen minutes of walking we were in a clearing.

"That was pretty quick. We still didn't run into any trouble yet and it's starting to make me really regret wearing my gear. If I would have known it was going to be this easy I would have just brought my normal clothes. You think I look good now Pyrona, just see me with my good clothes."

"I... never said you look good Rosie."

"I know you did."

"Rose Knight please stop being so stupid and pay attention."

"Ehh, you can't deny what I just said when I said that we still didn't run into any trouble."

"I know but it has been this way recently. We still need to keep our guard up anyhow."

Pyrona approached me and spoke quietly, "How you doing Sharcky? Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine. I'm actually doing pretty good now, I'm no longer as worried anymore."

She smiled a real big smile, "I'm glad that you're okay."

"I'll be fine Pyrona really. I can take care of myself right now." I didn't mind her being so nice, that was actually comforting. It was just weird sometimes hearing her say these kind of things to me and she hasn't known me for longer than a day yet.

She put her hand on my head, which was awkward because I was a little taller than her. "I know you can."

"Guys, look up ahead." Green Ranger called our attention onto some ruins.

"Is that the royal palace?" I asked.

Rose Knight confirmed that it wasn't. "This isn't the royal palace but what the hell is this?"

"Maybe it used to be a castle a long time ago," Pyrona started picking up rocks and dirt samples examining them with a monocle she pulled out of her hat.

"Whatever it is we may want to investigate. Anyone want to go?" Pyrona got excited and raised her hand.

Green Ranger just crossed her arms. "I don't think we need to mess with things for no reason. We need to concentrate on the mission."

"Aww that's no fun!" The other two complained.

I wanted to see what was going on over there as well. It didn't seem like we were going to make it to the royal palace anytime soon and I was tired of just walking the whole time. I raised my hand.

"Yayyy! Even Sharcky agrees with this Greeny."

"Fine whatever, let's make this quick. Please no one wander off."

The ruins was a decent size. What we were now searching in looked like a former castle of some sort, similar to the one we had stayed the night at minus the size. It was much smaller, the whole thing was made out of stone, and it hasn't been taken care of in a while, moss covered half of everything. Even sand had started to make its way to the inside. A river did run right outside the walls of this place and maybe that's why it was so much sand everywhere. The water wrapped around the building almost completely forming a moat. Broken bridges and gates had pieces strewn on the ground. Ripped cloth held onto worn stakes. There were steps and floors, though some of the floors weren't reachable as the steps had been destroyed. There was no life around. We all met back in the middle after exploring on our own for a little while, we still stayed close though thanks to Green Ranger.

"Do one of you know the name of this poor place?" Rose Knight inquired.

"I believe this is a watchtower. I'm not sure about the name of it."

"Maybe it's Watchtower."

"Pyrona, surely you just made that up."

"Did not!"

The wind had started to pick up a bit and Green Ranger went into alert and readied her weapon.

"What is it Green Ranger," I asked her. She didn't say anything but grabbed an arrow and aimed it at me. "Uhhh..." I turned my head and closed my eyes preparing myself for instant pain as she released the arrow. I felt it shoot right past me, the feeling making me jump, and then I heard a loud howling sound followed by a thud. It sounded like an animal had cried out in pain. I exhaled and then yelled at her, "What the hell was that for!? I know you didn't want me to come but you don't hav- Huh?" The others had drawn their weapons as well. Pyrona and Rose Knight stood apart from each other so that all three of them formed a triangle around me. It turns out we were surrounded by skeletons and what looked like big monstrous four-legged animals.

Rose Knight smirked and reached somewhere between his armor. He grabbed a flower and placed it in his mouth. It was a rose. "Alright, time to have some fun."

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Well, so now the heroes are finally out of the kingdom and have made their way to a whole nother area. Rose Knight was obviously being a jerk in this chapter but I believe he'll calm down once he gets used to Sharck.**

 **Next time on Sharck of Heroes, a battle scene. Possibly more than one.**

 **I'm also thinking about putting more of the story in 3rd person. I don't know how you feel about the previous chapter being the way I did it but I want to give it another shot. I'll have to fit it in there somehow.**

 **Thank you for reading.**


	5. Quick Defeat

**Disclaimer:** **I only own Sharck. I do not own any other character or setting in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade.**

* * *

How in the world did we manage to get surrounded so suddenly is beyond me. I was just getting used to feeling comfortable too. Now I felt like crap again, shaking and scared for what was about to happen.

The skeletons were slowly walking towards us, as were the wolf-looking creatures that looked like they went through mutation. Green Ranger stood on a cliff that was several feet higher than us and already had another arrow out at the ready aimed at an enemy. There were several enemies and the skeletons looked exactly like the one from when I was first attacked. They all looked clean and completely free of residue especially for something that must have previously come from being covered in tissue, blood, and muscles. The only difference was in their hands, they didn't have any weapons. The skeletons stayed silent the whole time and made no extra effort to scare us, whereas the creatures let off light growls as they moved in. These creatures had black slits as pupils, their legs were bare of any fur, their feet were large with very sharp claws, and their heads bared large teeth that were way too big for their mouths. Finally, an arrow went right through a skeleton and the enemies started running towards us.

Okay, here's when things got interesting. When these guys said they were heroes, I wasn't exactly sure what they meant. Weapons and such made me think that they were just good fighters or warriors. What I witnessed made me realize just how weak and useless I really was relative to their power and skill. Rose Knight jumped gracefully out of the way of the attacks and countered with his sword. He held his sword with a firm grip and easily swung it around as he needed. His sword was a broadsword with little spikes at the edges that seem like they would make it hard to pull out of someone if impaled with it. He would wait for the enemies to get close, seemingly having multiple close-calls, and then dodge out of the way and hit them. I didn't look at Green Ranger but I could see her arrows destroy anybody they touched. Her arrows glowed a faint green color and flew through the air like a diving bird homing in on a target. Pyrona's ability was the hardest to comprehend, she sent what looked like magic towards the enemies. I couldn't make sense of it now but I noticed that she shot small fire balls from her staff that destroyed the enemies. They had a hard time getting close to her, and when they did manage she would smack them with her staff and knock them out and then blast them into another world. I managed to stay away from any danger for the moment. I had plenty of protection from these three for sure. Between Green Ranger's arrows, Rose Knight's sword slicing, and Pyrona's magic, there was no worry for me at all. I wanted to help at this point but I would probably only get in the way and handicap the heroes.

More and more enemies came pouring out from the distance and under rubble but the heroes stood their ground and didn't back down. They kept at it, not missing a single beat. Suddenly the wind picked up again and something big hit me in my back and caused me to fall fast face first. I slowly got up and whiped the dirt from my face. When I turned to look for what had caused me to take the face dive I saw that it was Green Ranger who had hit me. When I say she hit me I mean that she was a projectile with a path that my body, or better yet, the bag on my back interrupted. She had been knocked into me by a purple hooded person. She cursed then got up and brushed herself off.

This guy had a purple hooded coat that covered his entire body aside from his boots. The sleeves on his coat were red and the cuffs were off-white or grey. He had grey hair spilling out of the hood that covered his face. I couldn't see his face, however I did end up seeing his smile. He held one evil grin on his face and just by looking at him I could sense the bad vibe that oozed from him. "Hahahahaha! What a surprise!" This guy's voice was deep and echoed loudly in my ears. "I expected to see the princess causing all this disturbance over here on my land. Instead I see you four. Something doesn't add up here. What, are you doing here?"

Green Ranger spoke for all of us, "We're here to stop you."

"Oh come now..." He looked around as if he was trying to find something to catch his interest. "... Surely you don't really mean that. You came here because you want to be under my rule, correct?"

"Never you bad guy!" Pyrona yelled out.

He still wasn't giving us his undivided attention. "Bad guy? I'm the bad guy for protecting my land? It seems like that would be something you would understand seeing how much you fight for yours."

"You can't play dumb with us, we know what you've done."

"And where's Atalanta and the other heroes you captured?" Rose Knight added to what Green Ranger had said.

The hooded villain yawned in response and then threw his hands up and shrugged. "Lizeea is such a cruel young woman. She sent you poor heroes here to die all on your own knowing you had no hope of survival. I may have a thing or two to learn from her and her evil ways before I kill her." He chuckled. "I tell you what, how about I make you a deal. You can go back to the kingdom and tell the princess that you are four live cowards, or I can rip half of your body in three and then send it to her, right before killing her. Your choice."

Green Ranger had had enough and didn't waste any more time by pulling out an arrow and shooting at him. Surprisingly he didn't move, even more surprising is the fact that the arrow hit him and bounced back landing at her feet. Pyrona shot some magic blasts at him that ultimately did no damage. They turned into smoke as they entered his personal space. They didn't seem to actually reach his body though, as if he was protected. Rose Knight had run up to where the hooded grey-haired person was and tried to slice down on him. This time he did move and smacked the knight down back towards us causing him to land at Green Ranger's feet. We were still surrounded but was no longer a concern to the enemies we were previously battling. This was good because this guy up on the little cliff was going to need all of our combined attention.

"Damn. He may be too strong for us."

"We have to keep fighting Greeny."

"Rose Knight you okay?"

"Ugh, I've been better."

The villain sighed. "Why don't you heroes ever choose the first option? You know being cowards isn't so bad, at least you get to live and see another day. I guess dying by my hands is a greater honor than I would have given it credit for. I'll have to make a note of that." Green Ranger shot a couple more arrows at him. "Hahahaha! That can't be it can it? Surely you have more power than that if you claim to stop me."

"We have to attack altogether. Someone has to get close so that he drops his guard and then I can take it from there." Rose Knight volunteered as the one to get close. Pyrona promised to make the guy up on the cliff pay once he dropped his guard. They all contemplated while facing the enemy to avoid making him aware of what they were up to. "Okay. I'll keep him distracted as you approach him and then you should be able to cause him to drop his barrier once you get close enough. We're going to have to give it our all on this one. Ready?" We all nodded, though I wasn't sure what my role was exactly. "GO!" Green Ranger shot her green‑glowing arrows as Pyrona shot flaming balls out of her staff. Rose Knight ran around to the other side of the ledge. The whole time the enemy did not move. About ten seconds of mindless shooting at the enemy, the knight finally approached from behind up on the ledge to strike the strong enemy with his sword. Right as his sword made contact with the enemy's back, the two fighters in front of me attacked, this time in a different way. Green Ranger shot multiple brightened green arrows. She shot them so fast that it could be considered that she released them all at once. Pyrona held her staff pointed up at the enemy. She charged up her staff that she gripped tightly. The staff shook in her hand and a rolling little light started to glow at the tip getting significantly larger by the second. She released it and slid back a few feet by the recoil.

Nothing happened however, nothing good anyway. The arrows bounced everywhere and even found their way to some of the enemies that were behind us. Rose Knight was quickly dealt with and ended up on the ground. The enemy looked down at him with a toothy side grin glued to his face. He then kicked Rose Knight hard on the side knocking him through an already damaged wall. He got up slowly coughing some of the dirt and dust that had just no doubt entered his lungs. He held his side that was assaulted.

The other three of us stood where we were, not moving. I was several feet behind the two female fighters.

"Are we done already? I wanted to have some fun for once." The villain laughed again and again.

"..." No one said anything. They couldn't cause any damage whatsoever to him. And he was making fun because he already knew this.

"You came to my territory and attacked my minions. I should just kill all of you right now and leave your bodies to be scavanged by them." We turned around to notice that there were even more enemies surrounding us than before. "On second thought, I'm feeling pretty good right now so I'll kill you quickly myself."

"Do your worst you bitch."

His grin faded away. "Hmmm, you must be the leader of this pathetic little group. Then by default, you must die first." He held his hand out with his palm open towards us, specifically at the one in front. A glowing purple ball started to glow on his hand and took an immediate circular shape that emitted a lot of energy. If he was to send that thing our way we would probably be vaporized. Somehow I could just tell that it had enough power to kill a person. "Say goodbye to your little archer you weaklings."

"I... can't... move!" Green Ranger squinted and grunted.

"Me neither!" Pyrona faced the same problem.

"Damn it you coward, release this spell you have on us now!" Rose Knight managed to say still not standing up.

I was stunned and couldn't tell if I could move or not. The ball descended towards Green Ranger.

"GREENY!

"Damn you!"

This wasn't good, the ball was coming in mighty fast. Once it had gotten close, without thinking I yelled and threw my arm up in her direction "NOOO!" It had hit and provided enough knock-back force to put all of us on our bottoms.

* * *

"... Hero, wake up." I did not recognize this voice. It had a very gentle tone though, one fitting for a mother speaking to her beloved child.

I awoke to see that I was surrounded by mist. I couldn't see anyone though. "Huh? Where am I?"

"..."

"Hello?"

"You have done well hero."

"Who are you?"

"I witnessed what you did for that young archer down there."

"How do you know that? Where are you?"

"I am in your mind hero."

"What does that mean?"

"You are unconcious."

"How am I able to talk to you, I can't even see you?"

Someone floated down from above me. It was a winged woman. She was beautiful. Her eyes were blue. She held a long staff in her hand that had a blue sphere, same color as her eyes, at the end of it with a crescent shaped stone furry looking animal standing on top. She wore a white cross-front dress with a golden cross attached at the hip. She was elegant in many ways. She wore a hood the same way the guy up on that cliff did, her hair flowing out from underneath; her hair was much longer. Was she working with him perhaps? He kills and then she meets us on the other side?

"How do you know what happened just now?"

"Your efforts were not in vain, even if you cannot see that yet. I have been watching over you for quite some time now."

I hadn't been here that long to be watched for "quite some time". I was getting a bit frustrated that this unknown woman was just talking to me like this. "What are you talking about?"

"Hero, you must never give up and consider yourself too weak to help your friends in battle. There will come a time where they must rely on you to defeat the Demon King. You must be brave and not dwell on what you can't do, but what you can."

"..."

"Remember this hero. You must believe in your abilities. You and your league have what it takes to save this world. The guardian of light shines on you, on all of you." She started to fade away.

"Wait. What does that mean? Wait!" She fully vanished.

What in the world was this lady trying to tell me? We would fight and save the world by defeating the Demon King? If he was more powerful than the guy we just were destroyed by then I really don't see a sliver of hope in defeating someone more powerful like the Demon King. I don't know if what she said actually has any relevance to my current situation anyhow. Ugh, this place just isn't getting any better.

"Sharck."

"Huh?" I could hear a voice but it was different.

"Sharck!"

I felt someone pushing me. Suddenly I gain consciousness and realize that everything is dark. My eyes were still closed. I opened them to see Rose Knight kneeled over me, his eyes lighting up as he saw my pupils.

He sighed in relief, "Whooo. You're okay. Now come on, get up and help me find the other two."

That's right, we were just blasted by that super strong person.

"Pyrona! I found Pyrona Sharck and she seems to be okay!" I heard her coughing. "It's okay girl. You are going to be okay."

I walked up to them and noticed that Rose Knight held Pyrona in his arms. She looked at him as she was gaining her strength and softly spoke, "Hey Rosie." She coughed some more.

"Everything's alright Pyrona. Sharck, go look for Green."

"Alright." I went to look for her but she wasn't close. All the stirred up dirt in the air wasn't helping either. Between the dirt and the rubble that was everywhere, she may be right next to me but I wouldn't know it. "I don't see her Rose Kni-" Suddenly I noticed a shadow lying on the ground. I rushed over to see that it was Green Ranger. Her hood had been knocked off and lay a few feet from her. I knelt down to lift her head up. "Green Ranger wake up." She didn't open her eyes. "Green Ranger. Hey! Come on!" I gently shook her to get a response. She still did not wake up. I placed my finger softly right under her jaw to get a pulse...

Found it. It was faint but it was there.

"How is she?"

I looked up to see Rose Knight standing above me. "She is alive, she's just out cold."

"She probably needs to rest, she was hit with that blast directly. The fact that she survived is impressive on its own."

"Greeny's a stubborn girl, a blast like that wouldn't kill her. I'm glad she's okay though."

"What should we do with her, we can't stay out here right?"

"You'll have to carry her."

"Me?"

"Who else? You are the best one for it."

"How did you come across that conclusion?"

"Well, you can carry her... or fight."

"... Right." I knew I wasn't a fighter so his point was clear.

The dirt started to decline from the air and we started hearing familiar sounding growls coming from around us.

"Damn, they're still here!" They started walking towards us like rabid animals enjoying the fear on our faces before they devoured us.

"Protect Greeny!"

"Right, Sharck don't let anyone get near her!" I nodded and readied myself for battle.

The enemies rushed towards us, similar like before except we were one person down and we were still trying to recover from our previous encounter. They showed no mercy. The skeletons swung their arms fiercely attacking Rose Knight and Pyrona. The creatures snapped ravenously and even grabbed onto Pyrona's staff and snatched it away from her. She became vulnerable and had to back up and let Rose Knight take most of the fighting. He was holding his own but was getting backed down quite a bit. "Pyrona we have to help him!" Rose Knight had been captured and was the rope to a tug-of-war game between three wolves. Two had his legs and one his arm. They eventually took his sword away and threw it on the ground. He would punch one away, then another would grab onto him.

"Oh no, we are in trouble!" Pyrona was looking in another direction as she exclaimed. I turned to see what she faced with such a horrified look on her face. What I saw was indeed a problem, one skeleton had picked up Green Ranger's bow and arrows and started using them. Good news is that he was a terrible shot. He shot arrows all over the place hitting many of his own partners. Unfortunately for us, it was so many that losing a few by these poorly aimed arrows made no noticeable difference. "Sharky, I'm going to try and get Rosie his sword. Keep protecting Greeny." Pyrona ran over to where the enemies were still tugging on the knight.

I stayed kneeled down by Green Ranger looking around and keeping an eye on the skeleton with the bow. This was looking very bad already but then got worse. Some enemies decided to go somewhere else and started heading towards me. I did what I could to thwart them. I threw rocks and even punched one. It did no good though. They grabbed me and started trying to rip me apart. It hurt like hell the way the skeletons were tugging away at my legs and arms. I yelled and squirmed but I was too weak. I felt one of my shoulders pop. "GRRRAAAHHH!" The pain was excruciating.

"Sharcky!" A blast hit one of them and killed it. Another couple blasts and only one remained. The last one managed to scratch my back with his fingers and then was killed with a beheaded blow.

Rose Knight had gained his weapon back and was fending them off. Pyrona went back to help him after making sure I was no longer in need of help. She left the one shooting the arrows still standing though. Now that my arm was dislocated, I just knelt over Green Ranger and formed a bridge with my body over hers to make sure no arrows landed on top of her. I probably should have yelled at Pyrona to blast him away but too much was going on, she had to help Rose Knight anyway. After a little while, I listened as I heard the commotion start to die down.

Footsteps approached followed by heavy breathing, "I think... we got em Sharck... They're running away. How is she?" I affirmably stated that she was untouched. "Good job... Man are you okay? Your back has a lot of blood on it. And your arm."

Another set of footsteps approached. I could hear her gasp as she knelt down to touch me, "Oh no Sharcky... I'm sorry." The sound of her voice made it seem as though tears would drop from her eyes anytime now.

"I'm okay thanks to you. Thank you both."

"Can you manage on your own?"

"Yeah I can, thanks." I pushed up on my one arm and stood up. Pyrona jerked her hand up at me when she saw me grimace as if she wanted to help me but decided not to. "I'll be fine guys don't worry... We kept her unharmed so that mission is at least complete."

"Right on."

We pulled ourselves together, gathered what we could of our belongings, and then headed out.

* * *

It had gotten dark after a little while. We had sat around a fire that Pyrona easily made and decided to rest a little ways away from the rundown area we battled. Rose Knight had carried Green Ranger here and we all covered her up with some dirt and the little mats we grabbed from the kingdom. I dumped the remaining things out of my bag and placed the bag over her as she layed on the ground still sleeping.

Though we won the latest battle of the day, it was still no doubt on their minds that we were no match at all for the main threat. The purple hooded villain destroyed us without making any effort. For me it was worse when I failed to protect Green Ranger on my own. I was completely useless in all of this either way.

We sat by the fire for what seems like an hour before anyone spoke. Rose Knight broke the silence, "Well, nobody died today. That's at least worth three stars right..." We didn't catch his humor.

"I want to go to sleep."

"Go ahead Pyrona. You too Sharck, I'll keep watch for the first couple hours."

"No. I'll keep watch, I can't sleep right now anyway." Pyrona was saddened by my state and frequently glanced at me the whole time we were sitting there.

"You sure Sharck?"

"Yeah, go ahead and get some rest. At least you two deserve it."

"..." They both complied after first looking at each other and then went to sleep. Rose Knight sat up while he slept and Pyrona lay down on her side and faced away from the fire. They both were battered and beaten up. I was in a worse condition but they definitely had their battle wounds too.

I wasn't tired at all at the moment. I was unsure though. I was unsure if me coming along wasn't a big mistake. I second-guessed myself before but now I had credible evidence to back up my hesitance. I was useless on the battlefield and only managed to get beat up. Rose Knight was right, I was just too damn weak. I should have turned around when Green Ranger offered the opportunity. I could leave now, but then I would have to kill myself for leaving these guys by themselves while they were in the middle of their well deserved rest. Besides, walking back by myself now would be even more dangerous than continuing on this journey.

My back was in serious pain though it was covered up thanks to Pyrona. She had pulled some things out of her hat and nursed me. It was a bit weird, as she pulled out bandages and other items used to dress up wounds all from her hat. How the hell she fit all that stuff in there was beyond me. My arm was held up at my heart across my chest and my back was bandaged completely. She had gently put my shoulder back in its socket. I thanked her sincerely for it and she tried to smile in response. I tried to let her know that I would be okay, yet she was still so bothered by what had happened to me. It actually got to me to make someone so nice worry so much over me.

I sat for over an hour just thinking to myself until I heard someone say my name, "Sharck."

"Huh?"

"Sharck."

"Green Ranger! You're finally up!"

"Yeah. How's everyone doing? Is everyone okay?... Are you okay?" She had already glanced at the others and noticed that they were just fine. She had focused her attention on me now.

I looked away from her in an attempt to hide my shame and make it easier to talk to her. "It doesn't matter, we're all good now. I suffered some injuries but I'm fine. What's better is you're fine too."

"..." She didn't say anything. She simply sat down close beside me. Half her clothes were torn off or ripped but she didn't seem to care at the moment. She didn't have her green hoodie on either. I could see her hair was a mess and very dirty at this point. Patches of dark spots were located in her hair. I assume it was dirt.

"... He must have put a spell on you though."

"Who?"

"That strong guy up on the hill."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, your ears are long. You look like a santa elf with all that green on now." I laughed a little at myself.

"... I don't know what you mean by 'santaelf' but I am an elf, so there's nothing wrong with my ears."

"What!?" She sighed at my reaction. "That's... wow! That's pretty cool!"

I was looking at her using my peripheral vision and saw that she faced me with a strange face. "Huh? You think elves... are... cool... and you're human. You are human right?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Hmm, where ARE you from exactly?"

"I... still don't know exactly."

"What were you doing all the way out there when we found you?"

"I was wandering around trying to find a woman and a man. In fact, it was Princess Lizeea and Rose Knight. Whenever I first got here, he tripped over me."

"Why were you looking for them, they didn't mention ever meeting you? So they didn't know you."

"Yeah, at the time they were the closest things to human contact I had since being here until I met you and Pyrona... And again, I want to thank you for saving my life then." I noticed she smiled.

"... You are pretty pathetic. I'll see if we can hurry up and make it back to the kingdom so you can stay where it's safe. You don't belong out here with us."

I hated that she felt that way, even if it was true. It was time to change the subject. "So, why did you keep that a secret?"

"Keep what a secret?"

"Your ears. You being an elf." I vaguely remembered Pyrona mentioning this when I first met them.

"It wasn't a concern of yours. The only reason I'm telling you now is because you have already seen who I am."

"Yeah but, why hide it? I mean, I'm not one to judge."

She exhaled before saying, "We don't necessarily get along with humans anymore. Ever since the war broke out and the king and queen were taken away and never seen again, it has been very hard to get along with humans and their disgusting ways."

I'm not from here so I shouldn't count. "...So humans did something wrong to you then?"

"It wasn't just me, everyone was affected. They destroyed my people's home and murdered countless elves. A few of us did manage to get away but we are scattered now. I haven't seen anyone since besides Lunar Priestess. I tried to stop the war but no one would listen to reason. They fought and destroyed until nothing was left. So much bloodshed, countless elders, children, mothers, fathers, families, friends. So many people died that night." She stared into the fire as she continued to tell me about what happened. "I trusted one of those humans Sharck. I trusted him more than I trusted anyone in the world, even more than my own family at the time. He was my best friend. We used to love always playing around together, running and chasing blissfully ignorant of our surroundings. We would always play and make fun of other people as they walked by. They would get so mad and chase us, but they could never catch us two. We would do everything together. I used to love barbecuing and hunting. I was one of the best young hunters ever. To see the look on his face as I would shoot my arrows at targets right down the middle, always hitting my mark. It was just natural to me. I was as accurate as anyone had ever seen. He was so jealous of me getting all the attention for it...

The world was so different then. Then suddenly, after we got older, he came to the forest one day and accused me of leading a bunch of demons along with many elves and attacking the kingdom. He looked me in my face and accused me right in front of everyone. Of course no one believed him at first, but he was persistent. He would try and get me to follow him to places telling me how sorry he was for trying to accuse me of attacking humans and that he wanted to make it up to me. I was so foolish then to trust him and believe that he may have made a mistake, there were multiple times I was called out of my name because I was thought to be someone else so I figured he might have made the same mistake. He trapped me in a pit one time and left me there. I was stuck for a couple days. It's amazing how helpless I felt while trapped there. It even rained very hard for a while and started to fill up the hole. Luckily Pyrona happened to be out 'exploring' or I might have not made it. I was too weak to climb out from not eating for a while. She saved my life that day and offered me some food and fresh water. She even offered to walk me back home but I wanted to go back by myself. It had already stopped raining, however, when I got back to my home, it was being burned down. I witnessed so much brutal slaughtering. I regret to this day that I ran away, I may have been able to save someone. The humans had come ready for battle and destroyed everything. I promised myself I would get revenge for what he had done to my people." She stopped talking and continued to stare into the fire.

I waited for about half a minute and then took this opportunity to ask a question. "What was the guy's name?"

She grew a frown on her face before saying with much disgust, "Ardyus."

"He sounds lame." She gave out a light laugh. I couldn't help but smile after hearing her laughter. " I got one other question though."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you still help the princess then? Surely she's human, and everyone else in the whole kingdom pretty much right?"

"She's like a little sister to me. I promised her a long time ago that I would always help her when she needed it, her or the king and queen." I understood this clearly enough. I yawned and stretched my arm and legs. She had made me forget about my uselessness and I could finally rest for the night.

We were silent for the remainder of the time. We sat next to each other in front of a big tree log, close enough so that our shoulders touched. Then she suggested that I get some rest before the sun arose. I agreed, closed my eyes, and went to sleep leaving her the only one awake.

* * *

I heard talking when I woke up the next morning. The sun had been blanketing me with its rays for what felt like quite some time now. I was hot. I opened my eyes to see Pyrona and Rose Knight casually chatting. Both of them had good clothes on now. They had thrown their torn clothes on the wood to burn it. I noticed I was lying on my side and covered up by Green Ranger's hoodie. I was very dirty and could taste nothing but salt as I licked my lips. Pyrona noticed me move and walked towards me. "Wakey wakey Sharcky Sharcky!" Oh gosh, this was too much cheer first thing in the morning. She pointed down in front of me. "Look! There's food for you." I looked down and noticed a plate with greens and a piece of meat.

"Oh, thanks Pyrona."

"For what?"

"For the food."

"What food?" It was amazing how she could make herself look as confused as she did.

I wasn't sure what she was getting at. I raised my eyebrow at her, "The food you just pointed at right here in front of me."

"Silly Sharcky, I didn't make that." ... I couldn't help but stare at her. "What?"

"Hey Sharck did Green tell you where she was going?"

I looked over at Rose Knight to see him sitting on a rock facing away from us as he asked the question. "No, why?"

Pyrona shrugged. "She was gone when we got up."

"She'll probably be back soon, she may have went to go wash herself and change clothes" Rose Knight said.

"Oooh, Sharcky, in that case, you should go make sure she is okay." She wore a big grin on her face.

"You think she's in trouble?"

"Yeah, and someone has to go check on her, right. And besides, you still need to go take a bath too because... woooh!" She waved her hand up and down at her nose.

"Well, I haven't washed myself since I got here."

"Yeah, so go." She helped me up and rushed me towards a direction. She shoved some clothes in my arms and shoved me forward and told me to keep going until I see water. I would be able to wash there.

I was so busy trying to keep up with her I forgot to ask her if I had to watch out for any bad guys out here. We weren't that far away from the place we fought those skeletons and wolfs at yesterday. Oh well, my arm was feeling incredibly better since last night and I couldn't tell I was scratched on my back anymore. I made a pretty fast recovery it seems, though I won't be trying to fight out here by myself. I hoped I would run into Green Ranger sometime soon so that she could help me find my way back. I only walked straight but I wasn't going to remember my direction heading here. I wasn't leaving any trails either, my mistake I guess. My number one concern right now was to make sure I didn't run into any trouble.

The walk towards the water wasn't bad, it was only a ten or fifteen minute walk at most. I arrived close to the water to realize that I was along a shoreline and that this was a beach of some sort. I saw quite a few animals on my way to the water, mainly birds. Now that I was at the water, I saw lots and lots of birds. I saw seagulls and long-legged white and black avian creatures. One thing, or person, I did not see though was the ranger. Where she actually was was beyond me. Bathing in the seawater though seems like a bad idea, there's just too much salt. Well it's all I had, either the seawater or I walk back without any form of bathing and still smell. Even fighters and such have to cleanse themselves every now-and-again. The birds acknowledged my presence and formed a path for me to get to the water. They didn't pay much attention to me other than when I got a few feet too close to them.

I threw my shirt and pants off and walked slowly into the water. It was cold but tolerable. I slowly submerged my body until I was completely underwater. The waves were very calm for ocean waves. I rubbed my hand against my body using it as a washcloth and pretended I had soap on it. I was knelt down in the water so even though my body was underwater, I wasn't that far into the ocean. This sand was going to be in every place of my body when I finished. Oh well.

I got out and waited for myself to dry a little under the sun and then quickly switched underwear. I find it strange how Pyrona knew exactly what to get me as far as clothes go. The drawers she handed me were white. The gear she handed me was a red headband, a chain mail, some cotton pants, a short cloak, and some hard fiber shoes. These items were a little big on me but they definitely were better than putting on the dirty ripped bloodied up clothes I had lying on the sand. The only thing left to do now was to go back to the camp where I had left the other two. I'll let them know that Green Ranger wasn't here.

Surprisingly I didn't get lost and arrived back at the camp to see that Pyrona and Rose Knight were waiting for me. "Did you find her Sharck?"

"Oh you look a lot better Sharcky."

"Thanks. No, I didn't find her. I was hoping I might have missed her and that she would be back by the time I got here."

"Well we have to start moving, we can't wait too much longer."

"Umm, I'm not very comfortable with that idea."

"Don't worry so much, I'm here remember?"

"No I mean she may need our help wherever she is and if we just started walking off without her, we won't be able to help her."

"Yeah, Sharcky's right Rosie."

"Fine whatever... Let's give her a few minutes then."

After about three minutes Green Ranger came walking up to us, her mind occupied. Rose Knight spoke loudly so that she would hear, "Welcome back Green! It's nice that you decided to finally show up! I actually wanted to leave you!" He started laughing.

"You don't have to speak so loud, I can hear you just fine."

"I'm just making sure."

"Alright guys, let's get going. We wasted enough time this morning. If we want to make it back to the kingdom within this week, we need to get a move on, hurry up and find the survivors, and then head back to the kingdom." Green Ranger never stopped walking, she walked through the middle of us three and kept going. We all turned our heads and stared at her as she kept walking without stopping to greet us after disappearing this morning. Rose Knight seemed like he wanted to exchange some words with her but refrained from doing so. We all started following her.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Well, I enjoyed doing the fighting scene in this one. That guy may have been too strong, oh well. More characters from LoA are introduced in the upcoming chapter! If you've played the mobile version you should have a general idea of who's coming around next. I'm not going completely with that plot but there are some definite similarities.**

 **Thanks for reading and again, feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. I feel like these chapters may contain a lot of fluff.**


	6. Captured

**Disclaimer:** **I only own Sharck. I do not own any other character or setting in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade.**

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Captured**

Following Green Ranger for a while, we walked and walked for a long time and seemed as if we were getting nowhere. We were walking along the shoreline but stayed a decent distance away from the water. As usual, Pyrona and I walked close together, Rose Knight walked a little off to the side, and Green Ranger continued ahead.

He started lagging behind. "I have a question guys..."

"What is it Rosie?"

"Why did Princess Lizeea make Green leader?" Rose Knight asked as we continued to walk.

"Why does that matter?" Green Ranger questioned him.

"Do you even know where we're going? I feel like we've been walking for a while now and have yet to make any real progress. We continue on like this and we might as well walk back because there will be no survivors by the time we get there."

"Stop complaining."

He started raising his voice a little, "I'm not complaining, I just want to know what's going on. You're not telling us anything. First you disappear in the morning without letting any of us know that you were going to leave. We were by ourselves, luckily we weren't taken advantage of while we were sleep. Second, when you did decide to show up, you say nothing about where you were or what you were doing. At least let us know that you are doing okay. And now, you have yet to speak to any of us about the current situation. Obviously we saved your ass back there and a 'thank you' would have been okay at the least." He stopped walking. "But to say nothing? Come on Green, you're better than that."

"There's not much to say right now Rose Knight. We were given a mission and have yet to complete it... and I intend to complete it, whether you are with me or not... Our mission isn't to defeat the Demon King but to retrieve information by infiltrating the royal palace and bring any survivors back with us. That's it. Stop making it seem like there's more going on than that."

"What the hell is this really about? I have my doubts about you right now."

I butted in and asked a question of my own, "Rose Knight, haven't you been there before? Can't you tell us how to get there?"

He placed his hand on his chin as he thought. "No. I can't really figure out how to get there. It was just luck that I found it when I did with the princess. All we really did was walk straight. We were lucky." The princess had said something similar to this now that I thought about it.

"So Rosie, how can you expect Greeny to know how to get there if it's only by chance?"

"Because it didn't take us this long to get there... My suspicions grow Green."

Green Ranger only stopped and turned around to say, "If you know where to go, then point us in the right direction."

He didn't say anything and just kept glaring at Green Ranger. We eventually started moving again, Rose Knight being a little distance behind.

Pyrona turned to me and whispered, "What's going on Sharcky?"

"I don't know. I'm just as confused as you are. I didn't know they were having problems with each other."

We continued on for a while before we came up on the fog again. We walked in it, this time for whatever reason, not staying close together. I had somehow managed to get separated from Pyrona who was the only one close to me before stepping into the fog. The other two were nowhere near me to begin with, so there really was no telling where they were relative to me. I just kept walking forward. I tried calling out a few times but received no response. This was no good. I just kept walking further, there was no point in turning around now. This fog had something about it that everytime we entered it, it seemed like it would teleport us to another location whether we walk forward, to the side, or turn around, not that I ever turn around or go to the side. Maybe if I tried that it would work. I couldn't hear the others if they were yelling for me. Oh well.

When I exited the fog, I noticed that Green Ranger was waiting for me. She had a collaboration of disappointment and relief on her face. "Great. Where are the others?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see them. I tried yelling out and even listening for a response but I couldn't get one."

"I've been waiting here for ten minutes. Where the heck are they?"

"You were out here waiting for ten minutes!?"

"Yes." Her response was underwhelming.

"Maybe we just have to wait."

"No, we can go now. The others won't be coming with us right now."

"You don't know that, let's just wait. You waited for me, let's just wait a few minutes for them."

"Have it your way."

We waited for more than ten minutes and no one came out of it. Not even a sound. "Okay. I guess they won't be joining us."

"Now let us get going."

I didn't want to leave them. What if they were still in the fog just having an extremely difficult time getting out. I mean, it took me ten minutes longer than Green Ranger to make it out. So maybe it's taking them a little longer than that. Then again, we waited for over fifteen minutes it felt like. Wherever they were, I just hoped they were at least together and okay.

"Hey Green Ranger... are you okay? You did seem a little annoyed earlier this morning."

"I'm fine Sharck, let's go."

"Huh?" I couldn't really read her. She seemed fine, but her short answers weren't helping prove that.

"I been meaning to ask you."

"Yeah?"

"How's your arm and your back?"

"Oh. I feel fine now, thanks for asking." I had forgotten about the wounds I endured in our previous battle. I wanted to make sure she was okay as well. She had already changed clothes this morning, similar clothing as before, and it was too dark last night to notice any scratches or bruises on her. She still wasn't wearing her hoodie and her hair no longer had any patches of dirt in it.

"What?"

I was caught staring at her body looking for any signs of injury. "Uhh... Well, are you alright?" I felt like a creep.

"I'm fine."

"I meant, knowing that we stood no chance."

"We'll get him next time. I'm fine really. You should worry more about yourself."

"How did you survive that blast back there? I mean it was powerful enough to knock us all out and we weren't even close to you."

"It's strange, I really don't know. But that's not important. Let's focus on what's ahead of us." And just like that, I dropped it. She seemed fine at the moment so maybe another time.

I followed her as we walked. She decided to start walking on the sand and getting closer to the water as we progressed. We ended up at a different part of the beach than where I went to wash up. These waters were a lot rougher and rocks and wooden objects lay everywhere. The waves crashed against the shore. There were cliffs in the distance with greenery and large hills even further in the distance. This was a decent sized bay. Dead sea creatures were sprawled out everywhere. There were some that were alive; some snails, a large starfish, and some birds.

Green Ranger suddenly slapped me on my arm and pointed ahead with her bow. I saw some figures in the distance along the shore. She readied her weapon and I knew what that meant. It was time to fight, again. The only difference this time was that she was going to NEED me to watch her back as the others weren't here with us.

They were just a group of skeletons, one significantly bigger than the rest. They seemed to be communicating with each other; all I could see was that they faced each other. Most of the smaller ones faced the bigger one. They had a tent set up and what looked like a fire pit sitting next to them. Since we were in the open area I was surprised they didn't already spot us walking towards them. "Get down." I followed her order and knelt down. "Stay there."

"What are you about to do?" I felt myself getting nervous.

"I'm about to take them out. I just need to get closer." She walked towards them a little and then stopped. "That big one there may be trouble." She turned to face me. "What can you do?"

"Uhhh... nothing?" I gave her an awkward grin.

"Nevermind, I have an idea." She motioned for me to get up and pointed, "I'll get behind that rock so they can't see me. You get their attention and once they get close I'll take them out with my arrows. They are mindless so they won't suspect anything."

"And what about the big one?"

"If I can get him alone it won't be that tough."

"Hmm. Well, I'm not doing it."

"We don't have that much time, just do it."

"Uuugh." I was very nervous and scared. How was I to know she would have my back? I stretched and readied myself. She had already went behind the rock and looked at me to start getting their attention. I really didn't want to do it. I just stared at her, and she stared back eventually throwing her hands up and raising her eyebrows at me.

"What are you waiting on!?"

"I think you should do this." She slapped her forehead and shook her head.

"You're so pathetic!"

I went to switch places with her but heard light growls coming from behind me. We weren't alone anymore. I turned to face several enemies, a couple wolves and a few skeletons. "AHHH!" I ran away from them, going the opposite direction of where Green Ranger was. I heard their footsteps right behind me and knew they were in pursuit. I heard a couple thuds and yells, bones shattering, and curiously turned to see what was happening. One of the skeletons was left and still chased me. I turned around to fight him as I didn't want to get too tired by just running and was relieved to see that he was already taken down. "Ah, ahh... ahh... haaa... whoo."

"Great job." Green Ranger had walked up to me and placed her hand on my shoulder as I was bent over catching my breath. "Now come on let's get back to what we were doing."

"I don't care... I have to collect... myself first."

"... You didn't do anything. Why are you so tired?"

"It's not tired... I'm just catching... my breath... after being so frightened. They were right there! It scared the hell outta me!"

"Pathetic. Let's go." She nudged me forward on track to where we were going.

Green Ranger had said that she heard more enemies down the way. I didn't see anything however. After we reached the camp, there were more enemies that did indeed show up. It was about the same amount as before except it was only skeletons this time. She shot some arrows as I just stood back and watched. The only thing really making noise was the shuffling and movement, the arrows making contact with bone, and the bones collapsing on top of each other. None of the skeletons reached me as she deployed her bone-seeking arrows that destroyed them before they could get close. They seemed pretty strong to me, but she made them look like thin tissue as her arrows easily ripped through them. She pulled out her arrows so fast, she would destroy one and then destroy another within a couple seconds. They never really had a chance to get close to her. After she finished, we started searching around the camp to see if we could find anything.

There wasn't anything really useful around. There were a few tools and a bunch of wood and weapons, some more animal carcusses, and some miscellaneous items. I found it strange that these skeletons had weapons with them but weren't using them. I had to figure out something, "You are pretty amazing Green Ranger. How long does it take one to become as skilled as you are in archery?" I was really amazed at how good she was with her bow and arrows.

"It takes a lot of training. Only few can do it."

"You think I can learn it?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay."

"... Usually a child develops their skill at a young age and then builds on that particular skill through lots of training. Mines was archery, I was actually one of the best at it back when I was young. You can't just take time to learn something and expect to master it just because you spend a lot of time on it. It also has to be something you are already familiar with. It has to be a part of who you are."

"The only way to master something is to take time doing it though right? Consistently and continuously."

"What I mean is, there are some things that most people will never understand or be able to do even if they spent their whole life training for it."

"I guess I understand... So how do I figure that out? I mean I don't have a skill but if I did, how would I know that I have one?"

She shot another arrow at an eavesdropper, destroying it, "... That's just something you'll have to figure out on your own."

After moments of more walking and Green Ranger destroying skeletons, and occasionally wolves, we found ourselves at the fog again. "Alright, you ready?"

"Yeah." I wasn't.

"Stay close, we don't need to lose each other." I nodded and moved in close to her as we entered the fog.

Even though my breathing wasn't affected much at all anymore when being in the fog, I still made sure to pay attention and breath a little more carefully anyway.

I saw Green Ranger's ears twitch, "I hear someone."

I whispered to her, "Where?" She kept turning her head as if to get a better understanding of where it was coming from.

"I, don't know." She grabbed her bow and went for an arrow. "Damn."

"What?"

"We have to get out of this fog so we can see."

"I'm with you but where is the opening?" The sand under my feet started getting harder and harder, like the ground was changing compounds.

"Follow me."

I could actually hear someone else in the fog with us now. It sounded like more than one person. They were probably close by now and were watching us. I turned around to notice no one was behind us that I could tell.

We eventually walked out of the fog and noticed that we had approached a very large building. I noticed the atmosphere had drastically changed and we were in a familiar looking area. The sky was a dark maroon color and everything around seemed still. Green Ranger had stood still staring at the building in front of us. This place reminded me of the area we fought the villain a little with how rundown this building was. It was made of stone but wasn't as large. It had a large number of steps that lead to the entrance. Another difference was that it had a roof but only one floor. I could see right inside as there was no door covering the front entrance. It was knocked off to the side.

Green Ranger broke from her trance, "This is it!"

"What? What you mean?"

She turned to me, "This is the royal palace."

"What!?" I felt sick. "We should turn back then."

"No. We have to do this."

"No, we need to go find Pyrona and Rose Knight! I'm not about to go in there with just us two!"

"Damn it. And I need to make some more arrows." I started panicking and made a run for it. She stopped me however by throwing her bow at my feet and tripping me. As I got back up she grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me close to her, "Now's not the time to be a coward. I gave you a chance to walk away but you didn't. Now it is too late. If you leave now, there's no way to know where that fog will place you on the other side." Though I hate to admit it, she was right. I shouldn't have come if I was just going to run and not help at all.

She released me and I gained my composure. "Alright. What do you suggest we do then?"

"We move forward of course." Green Ranger did not say this. We both turned around to notice Rose Knight. Him and Pyrona had finally caught up with us as they exited the fog.

"Hi guys!" Pyrona said in her usually happy tone as she smiled and waved at us. I needed that mood of hers right about now.

Green Ranger smiled back at her. "I agree. Everyone ready?"

"Yep!"

"You know it Green."

I didn't say anything as we started walking up the stairs that lead to the front doorway. No one cared to mention the fact that we were separated.

It was very quiet as we got close. Almost too quiet.

Immediately as we entered the palace, enemies started attacking us left and right. Skeletons and wolves all poured out from nowhere and tried to end us as quickly as possible. Skeletons clawed and grabbed at us as wolves bit and snapped. Green Ranger walked in first and didn't react fast enough and was overwhelmed by the large number of attackers that started beating up on her. The three of us behind her tried to grab her back outside but they snatched her away and started viciously beating on her. We ended up getting pulled in while trying to pull Green Ranger out.

There were more than enough enemies to attack us as well and they wasted no time trying to tear us apart. Rose Knight had a chance to pull out his sword but it was swatted from his hand as he was in the middle of swinging it. He did end up punching one of the skeletons across the head doing damage but not destroying it. Pyrona gripped her staff and attempted to shoot magic at them and managed to hit one skeleton, killing it. That was all she could manage to do however, before they snatched her staff away from her and took her away.

I didn't see the heroes anymore as there was such a large quantity of enemies that I couldn't really see anything ahead of me past the few skeletons that now faced me. I might have seen one tall one walking around. Some of the skeletons were fighting each other even, trying to get to me. Something told me that whatever they were going to do was going to be painful as hell, even worse than last time.

They got to me and I just tried to absorb as much as I could. One punch, two punch, three punch, bite. Four punch, five punch, six punch, and a right. A left and I felt as though I could take no more that night. I probably would have been knocked out already but they were hitting me everywhere, not just my head. After surrounding me, I was hit and bit on my back, legs, arms, and stomach. I felt myself lose my footing and fell back. The only thing I could think to do at this point was to ball up and cover my head as they kicked and bit at me. All I could feel was kicks and teeth grabbing my arm and tearing at it. These guys were just as brutal as before. The light faded into darkness for a moment. The last thing I remembered before completely fading was if the others were doing better than I was.

* * *

 **3rd person POV**

* * *

The heroes were in quite a bind at this very moment and were facing defeat for the second time since their journey began. Sharck was now unconcious, and so were the rest of the team.

The skeletons were cruel and brutal but they weren't stupid enough to kill without being commanded to do so, fortunately for our heroes. However, there were quite a bit of them which made it so that they were able to do more damage to the heroes within a few minutes than they could ever possibly hope to do individually. These guys weren't much without a boss, and so they had one. This boss was the one to make the final decision on who lives and who is killed, the one who decides where to go and for how long, the one that plans on where to set traps and send scouts for enemies, the one that has an exponential amount of strength than the ones he commands. He's been around for some time and had grown their respect and trust in him by brute force alone. They dared not disobey him for they were dealt with in the utmost harsh way immediately. If they had a ranking system, he would be considered their captain.

He was big in size compared to the rest, and more than likely this with his strength is what made him feared and respected by the other more diminutive skeletons. His eyes glowed a fiery color and he usually walked around with a massive scythe in his hands. He watched as the heroes took their merciless beating. He walked by and picked up each of their weapons as the commotion went on and placed them on the side against the wall. He thought to use them later in an auction to make some money. He already had plenty of it but was insistent on getting so much more. He was entitled to rule over this palace on his own and planned to do so without any opposition.

He noticed that the fighting was clearly one-sided at this point and decided to step in. He hated killing without the victim knowing of their fate before-hand. "Enough!" He took one of his followers by the skull and crushed it. "I told you not to harm them so much and you have already made them bleed all over. Now I have to make sure that they are still alive. And you know how much I hate wasting time!" Another special thing about this particular skeleton was that he could actually speak. "Back up!" His subordinates backed away and allowed passage to each of the heroes' bodies. "So disgusting flesh is. All it tends to do is leak all over and attract diseases... Hmmm, this one here isn't doing so well." He inspected Sharck's body with his foot and noticed the faint and uneven movements of the chest. He knew that this particular hero most likely would not make it through the night. His muscles were terribly torn through in one of his arms and he didn't look too tough as it was. He had already lost quite an amount of blood and was still losing more. The captain grew angry. He swung his weapon, killing a few skeletons. "Fools! You idiots need to listen to me when I tell you to do something! When I tell you to not kill them, I MEAN DON'T KILL THEM! The King wants them alive! I'll kill all of you next time!" He tossed the hero's body in a pile with the others. "Now take them to the cages with the other one!" The skeletons clumsily followed orders making more clatter running into each other than actually getting the job done. They eventually figured it out and transferred the unconcious heroes to their new residence.

The heroes were taken down a long hallway with an outstretched worn red carpet. The whole building was one giant hallway, with the exception of a few rooms to the side and in the back. The hallway held a fireplace midway against the wall and windows along both sides. War banners hung all around the entire palace.

The cages they were taken to were commodius, though lacking in comfort. The male heroes were tossed into one cage and the heroines were tossed into an already occupied cell, the cells being a good distance away from each other.

There was a woman curiously looking on as the commotion approached her. Her hair was long and brown. It reached all the way down to her thighs and was well kempt despite her current situation. The lady wore a long t-shirt with the initials 'D.K.' written on the back. The shirt was relatively plain otherwise and had no appeal.

Because she was drastically weakened, when the cage was opened up she made no attempt to escape. She knew that she would make it out just to be captured and tossed back in again, only succeeding in enduring more torture. She waited for the skeletons to walk away before approaching the heroes that lay motionless in front of her. She carefully touched one of the bodies to make sure they were still alive. The woman shook her head at how beaten their bodies were. She assumed they were fighters if they were able to survive such assualts. She placed her hand upon one of them and a faint green glow appeared around her hand. The twitching and shifting could be seen from the body her hand was placed over. The unknown woman placed her hand on the other hero and performed the same action with the green glow around her hand. This one too started moving.

They both awoke around the same time and gathered themselves. Pyrona's reaction was of a little more shock and disbelief but her and Green Ranger both didn't make too much noise when realizing that they were indeed locked up inside a cage next to a stranger. The stranger approached them calmly with an open hand signaling to them that she was not a threat. "Who are you?" Green Ranger decided to ask, Pyrona right behind her.

"You have nothing to fear, I didn't put you in this cage. The one who did is not here right now. I do need your help as I know how I can escape now."

"Who are you?" Green Ranger demanded.

"Greeny, we're doing okay now." Pyrona indicated that her wounds were almost absent and that she couldn't feel much of the bruising she knew she had endured.

"You are all heroes, yes?" The woman smiled at the girls and showed no advancement towards the archer's defensive stance.

"That's none of your business."

"Why are you feeling such a way towards me?"

Pyrona had left Green Ranger and stood in front of the odd woman, "I'm Pyrona, thanks for healing us." The mage beamed a smile.

The woman nodded in response, "You're welcome." Green Ranger was still not trusting of this woman but decided to follow her partner's lead and nodded at the woman as a form of greeting. "Listen, we don't have much time. We have to get out of here and save your friends over there.

"Can you not heal them like you did us?" The archer continued to question her.

"I would be able to but I don't have my book and I have lost a lot of essence from these skeletons. Without my book, my power is diminished drastically."

"You mind explaining to us what you're talking about?"

"I have a lot of power in the form of essence, which is used to conjure up spells. With it, I can level these guys with no problem, and heal your partners. I would still need my book however."

"We're supposed to believe that you just happened to get caught even though you have enough power to destroy them?"

"They took most of my essence and pressured it into little shards and scattered them everywhere."

"And how did they take your essence?"

"Ugh! I don't have time to explain this to you right now, you're going to have to trust me, at least until we get out of here." The green-wearing archer was still untrusting of this woman.

"What's the plan lady?" The mage asked.

"First..." She looked down and placed her hand under her chin. "I have to figure out what the plan is first."

"Great, you're supposed to be powerful but obviously not smart."

"Greeny that's mean, don't say that about the nice lady."

The lady stood up and raised her hand, aiming her palm at the lock on the other side of the gate. With much effort, she managed to hit the lock, but no damage was done to get free from the cage.

"Wow! That was so cool!" The mage cheered in amazement.

The archer didn't give the talent much hype but did take notice that this woman's power resembled the Demon King's and that was reason enough to be suspicious of her.

"The first thing we need to do is figure out how to break free."

"Ugh... leave that to me gorgeous." Rose Knight had awaken on his own and was now getting up. The three women turned and looked at him standing up hunched over touching over his face. "Damn. They could have at least left my face alone. These guys have no class whatsoever. They beat a man up and then damage his most prized possession. And then they throw me in a bird's cage with a dead guy. Come on! I seriously hope you two are doing better. Oh, and you too Miss." He bowed clumsily to the unknown woman in the cage across from him. "So, what do you need me to do?"

"This is good, we need to get to you somehow so I can help you and your friend. Can you somehow get free? You may need help getting free, wake him up."

"I can barely move over here, and I don't feel anywhere near as bad as he looks. I can't even tell who it is, it's too dark to see much."

"We have to get our weapons and then we can easily get out of here." Green Ranger supposed.

"So we need to go and get your weapons first." The woman stated as a matter of fact.

"But how do we get out of here?"

At this moment, Pyrona realized that Sharck was not accounted for. "Where's Sharcky guys?"

"That must be the one over there in that cage with you hero." She spoke to the warrior.

"If that's the case then... Oh." The beaten knight limped towards the body that lay a little distance away from him on the other side of the enclosure and lightly pushed against the body with his hand. The women across waited for his assessment of Sharck's condition, one in particular was very anxious. "Hmmm... He's very cold but I do feel him breathing. Damn, they went a little far with this one."

"Is Sharcky okay Rosie?" Rose Knight had been mumbling to himself so the others couldn't hear him.

"Uhhh, yeah he's just sound asleep over here."

"Wake him up, I want to speak to him."

"Uhhh, no let him sleep. We need to get out of here anyway. Let's worry about that first."

"Sharrrrckyyy! Sharrrrckyyyy! Sharr-hmmmm!"

Green Ranger covered her mouth. "Shhh! Stop being so loud Pyrona. You don't want to wake him up right?" The mage agreed.

A guard skeleton walked in and headed towards the cage the guys were in. He opened it disregarding that the knight was awake and watching him. Though the knight was shocked how he had gone unnoticed, he took action immediately and jumped on the skeleton's back. It fought back and threw the knight off of him. Rose Knight hit the ground hard making a loud thud. He contorted his face as he stood back up to give it another try. He noticed that the skeleton wasn't paying attention to him and was only after Sharck's lifeless body. "You guys are going to get enough of attacking someone who's already down."

Meanwhile Pyrona couldn't keep quiet anymore as she noticed who the real target of the enemy was. "Get away from Sharcky you bully!"

Her partner didn't like her loud attempts to help. "Pyrona be quiet!"

"No, let me out of here so I can take care of him myself!" She shook the cage and made much noise on top of her boisterous yelling. "Pick on someone who's able to fight back you weakling!"

The skeleton did not respond to anything and kept at what it had entered the room to do, to obtain Sharck's body and dispose of it. The captain had ordered the removal of Sharck so that his body would not start to rot inside the enclosure. Rotting bodies were meant to be disposed of properly. Despite them being, well, skeletons, they were careful about keeping the place clean.

"Don't try to ignore me you bastard." Rose Knight jumped on the skeleton again, this time grabbing him from the back while it was attempting to pick up the lifeless body. "Hah! Got you!"

"Yeah! Get em Rosie!" She threw her fist up cheering for the knight.

"Ah! I can't... hold, on!" He was thrown down again this time landing a lot harder and finding it quite difficult to get back up. The skeleton had now turned his attention on him and started attacking. He was now an obstacle that had to be dealt with. "Agh! My body is too damaged. This is going to be a lot harder than I thought." The enemy walked slowly up to him and kicked as hard as it could, and continuously kicked some more.

"Rosie!"

"Shit!" Green Ranger noticed that more skeletons walked into the room. They wanted to figure out what all the screaming and yelling was about. They walked in and noticed that one of their coworkers was dealing with one of the heroes and decided to help out. They started approaching the cage and stopped at the entrance. They stood there almost guarding the gate so no one would escape.

"Rosie get up!"

He was taking too many kicks to the body to be able to get up. He yelled out in agony. One of the other skeletons walked in and retrieved Sharck's body. He approached the skeleton currently kicking on the knight and then left. After another kick, the skeleton finally stopped and also exited, closing and locking the gate behind him.

"Please, no don't take Sharcky! Sharcky wake up! Wake up!" Pyrona had slid down against the cage and slouched over. She knew there was nothing she could do now. She gave a feeble attempt one last time just to see if it would somehow magically open. It only mocked her by budging.

The woman standing by, only observing, had finally said something that would change the mood a little. "I have a plan." Only Green Ranger turned to face her. "I know how we will escape and get your fellow hero back."

"What's the plan?" The archer asked as her mage partner worried.

"I will use my power to break the lock, but I will not be of any use to you afterwards. I will only be able to guide you through this place but I will not be able to help in battle."

"That's it? Why can we not just break the lock ourselves? That will allow you to keep your power and help us."

"These locks are nearly impossible to break from the inside with no weapon. If you can get a good hit at it from inside then go ahead." The archer looked at the lock and noticed that it was too far out of reach to get a good hit on it, and that hitting it from inside would be more than uncomfortable for the person contorting his or her body to get to the lock and hit it effectively. "My power will work, don't worry."

Pyrona jolted up and quickly walked up to the woman grabbing her by the shoulders with a menacing look on her face, "You could have stopped them!? Why didn't you!?" She started shaking her.

"Stop it Pyrona! We WILL get him back. We have to listen to this woman first. Apparently she knows about this place."

The woman had to release herself as the mage's muscles had locked her hands onto the mysterious woman. "... Do that again and I will destroy you. Now, like I was saying I will break the lock but you three have to be ready to fight. They won't like the fact that we will have escaped. And Knight?" She looked over at the other cage making sure the knight was listening, "I will try and help you with a small healing spell, just don't expect much from it. We have only one chance, if they catch us this time, we will not be able to get out, or worse."

"... Alright, we'll let you do what you have to do." The archer threw her suspicions aside for now.

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry Miss but I'd rather stay right in here, just in case we do manage to get caught again. Getting beat like this over and over just isn't cool. I'll wait here for you girls, if you do make it then that's great. Count me out anyway."

"Do not fear hero. We will succeed in escaping."

"I'm more interested in how you know that."

"Forget the pep talk, let's escape. We'll leave him here." The archer grew impatient.

The woman closed her eyes and started chanting. She placed both her hands in front of her face so that her index fingers and thumbs formed a spade. Neither hero understood what she was saying because she was mumbling to herself. Suddenly, a light purple glow formed around her hands. It grew brighter and brighter until it lit the entire room. The woman opened her eyes, "Are you ready heroes?"

"Aye aye," one of them responded.

The woman assumed everyone was ready and put her hands, still holding them the same way, out in front of her, extending her arms all the way. "Stand back!" The two heroes heeded her warning just in time as the light purple energy was released from the woman's hands. With the blink of an eye, the lock on the door was shattered and the door burst open breaking off its hinges.

Pyrona wasted no time checking to make sure it was safe to approach, she jumped out of the cage ready to destroy anyone in her path.

On the other end her partner called out to her, so she turned around and noticed that the powerful woman was no longer standing but lying down. She had used too much of her 'essence' and now she was completely drained and unable to even walk on her own.

"You overdid it a bit didn't you?" Green Ranger asked as she helped the woman to her feet.

"My life is... in your hands... now."

"Thanks for doing that, we owe you. Come on Pyrona."

The knight stood by amazed at what was happening. He couldn't imagine the woman having so much power even with so much of her 'essence' stripped from her. He wondered how destructive she could be if she found her spell book. Her little display had convinced him to go and at least try and help out the best he could. He would pose as a distraction if he had to.

"Wait! Come get me, I'll go too. I don't know what I was thinking. I must have had a weak spell put on me." The others looked at each other and then decided to help him get out. He waited for his partners to break open the lock on his cage. They tried breaking it by pulling on it, no luck. "Hey guys, pick up those broken metal poles over there and use them." One of them grabbed a pole and broke the lock after a few hard swings. "Alright, let's do this." Although he needed help getting out and walking, he was determined to bring down the skeletons who had showed no mercy.

Pyrona helped Rose Knight walk and Green Ranger helped the drained woman. They exited the room and walked very lightly and carefully, making as little noise as possible. They escaped just in time as a group of skeletons walked in the room they were just in surveying and trying to understand how the occupants had escaped.

"They're about... to go and... alert the others."

"Great, that means we need to go NOW. Pyrona, we may have to fight up ahead. Are you ready?"

"You betcha Greeny." She said as she pulled out a small broken piece of cylindrical metal she had picked up earlier. It was a little shorter than her staff but dangerously sharp at the edge and well capable of killing with the right amount of force.

"You don't... have to keep... helping me... Leave me so... you can help... fight." The archer hesitated but knew that the woman spoke with sense. She too pulled out a simply broken metal pole.

"Alright, let's go Pyrona. We won't leave you guys behind too far." The injured two nodded.

"I'll protect her if something happens Green, don't worry about it." The knight said with a grin on his face knowing this was not likely true in his condition.

The two pole-wielders walked into the opening and started moving down the long hallway. There were quite a few rooms that ultimately entered this area at some point. The heroes started grabbing unwanted attention and skeletons started pouring out of the rooms. They prepared themselves for another tough battle.

The skeletons charged without any attack plan. There were many but only a couple would get to the two defenders at once. They were beside a wall and could not get approached from the sides or behind.

The archer and mage started attacking together and destroyed them two-at-a-time. Some needed multiple hits before going down, most were one-and-done. They swung and stabbed as hard as they could to keep the enemies from reaching them. With each attack, they advanced one step forward. Another attack, one more step. They moved in unison and marched forward, the injured behind them moving slowly along, making sure nothing approaches from behind.

"I'm sorry knight. I was supposed to.. heal you." The woman said with difficulty to the bruised knight.

"Eh. Don't worry about that, you did more than enough, we're escaping thanks to you. Just hang in there until we get a hold of some of those shards with your essence in them you were talking about earlier." He focused on not falling too far behind. "... Then maybe you can explain how you became so powerful." Although the knight was bruised pretty badly, his armor absorbed most of the blows and so he was alright as long as he wasn't doing anything strenuous.

The heroines were starting to get tired and were beginning to miss more with each several swings. "Greeny, my arm is getting tired." She yelled out to her partner right beside her.

"Hang in there Pyrona, we can't give up no matter what."

"You're right. This is for Sharcky!" She yelled as she brought down her weapon on another formation of animated bones.

Just as the mage destroyed that last victim, the last few stopped in their tracks and ran towards the front entrance. They ran outside.

The two fighters took this luxurious moment to catch their breaths and to make sure the other two were okay. They were more than just fine, they were protected and not further harmed, thanks to them.

"Look, your weapons." The woman pointed out feeling a tad bit better.

"Sweet." The knight helped her down to the floor gently, letting her prop her back against the wall. "Be careful, there's a whole bunch of broken bones on the ground." The floor was indeed covered in bones.

"Hmm, this bow is useless without any arrows." The green archer turned to her partners, "They have a trap waiting outside."

"Hah! These idiots think that they can trample us even when we have our weapons? Wow, and I thought I could be stupid." The knight mocked their methods.

"Yay! My staff is okay!"

"Something is not right here." The woman softly spoke. "We should not be able to obtain your belongings... without being challenged or going through some form of challenging barrier. They must be plotting something really dangerous up ahead."

"I say we go straight through there and kick some ass."

"Shut up Rose Knight. You are still weak so you won't help much when they swarm us." The green archer was not amused by his bold plan.

"Pshh, I have my sword back, I'd like to see them try and take me out now. This time I'll make sure I keep a nice and tight grip on it."

"It's too quiet, I can barely hear anything outside." Green Ranger thought about the possibilities of what was waiting on the other side. Was there really a trap waiting for them outside, or even worse, the Demon King? If so, why were they waiting outside and why did they allow them to get the weapons? Did they finally realize that they were outmatched and actually decided to hightail it? Whatever the case may be, she just hoped they were ready for it.

Pyrona approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder, "No matter what's on the other side, we're ready. Don't worry."

"... Let's go. I need you to have my back as soon as I exit this building. I know they are waiting outside."

"Right behind you." Her female partner assured her.

The elf walked towards the exit with the other two following closely. She prepared for a bunch of attacks and that she would be pummeled a bit. As she exited, she saw something unexpected. A big skeleton stood in the center of a large circle made of standing smaller skeletons. All of their hands were behind their backs. His penetrating fiery glowing eyes staring at the trio. He spoke, "Why are you in such a rush to leave? At least help me clean up the mess you have made. These dead skeletons don't just, pick themselves off the ground you know. I actually have to collect them by walking around and picking up their bones. I HATE cleaning up after someone else. It's a big waste of my time."

"Nobody cares!" Pyrona yelled at him.

He didn't make an expression but he was obviously displeased by this outburst. "If you have what it takes then come fight me."

"You got it!" Pyrona, disregarding the number of skeletons that surrounded him, aimed her staff and shot a bolt of fire right at him. She could only gasp at what happened next. As the ball of fire got close to the captain, he brought his arm from behind him and had revealed that he held Sharck's head in his hand. The ball hit Sharck's body burning him right on the stomach. Her eyes widened and she became terrified at the thought that she might have accidentally killed him, if he was even alive to begin with. She lost the grip on her staff and dropped down on her knees covering her face feeling guilty and ashamed that she fell for such a trick. Green Ranger knelt down and tried to comfort her.

"Oh you dirty bastard! You're going to pay for that one!" The knight yelled.

"Shut your mouth you rude humans! If you speak again I will crush his little skull!" The knight narrowed his light blue eyes at him. "This little filth here is dead anyway, why do you care for his body so much? It amazes me how you could care for something so useless." He started pacing back and forth and sort of displaying Sharck's body as he spoke with his subordinates. "This here is the reason they fight us now. 'Ohhh, give him back. He's our hero, give him back.'" He was mocking no one in particular, but he was speaking of the heroes. "If we give them this, they will find another reason to fight us. These creatures do not understand peace, they do not understand our goal, our purpose! They do not understand why we fight! We fight for a greater cause, a higher purpose than these disgusting creatures and their filth. Look at this weak and pathetic excuse for a warrior. We are supposed to fear this!?" He started acting like he was scared of Sharck's lifeless body and the skeletons surrounding him also pretended. At this point, they all were toying with the body. "Our King's purpose is not understood by these so-called, heroes, and their close-mindedness. For this, we shall sacrifice them all to our Lord! The first one to bring me their bodies, ALIVE, will be my second-in-command. Now, let the battle, begin!" As he said this, he turned and pointed at the heroes. The skeletons all brought their arms forward and revealed weapons. There were pickaxes, sticks, and spears.

They all charged towards the entrance where the heroes still were, the knight standing defensively in front of the other two. At this point they all felt this was pretty much it. They lacked motivation and didn't see a way out of this. Battle after battle, these brave warriors had to endure over and over. The beaten were beaten continuously again and again. Their hope slipped away and it was understandable. Since the fighting began, someone was injured nearly the entire duration. What hope could they possibly still have after being captured, stripped of their strength, and short one member? They were still hurt and not fully recovered from the previous beating, one had no more ammo, one had lost hope and refused to continue, and the other was still too hurt to fight this many, though he was still determined to battle his way out. The outlook was grim at best.

"Haaaa!" From behind the entrance, a small purple energy ball shot out at an incredible speed. The light was so bright that everyone had to shield their eyes. A loud bang was heard and the ground shook underneath their feet. When removing their eye covers, they could notice a big dirt cloud a little distance in front of them. A dark mark on the ground with bones scattered along it had become visible once the smoke started to clear. The blast had disintegrated several skeletons and destroyed several more that were still inside the blast radius. Everyone, even the rest of the skeletons and captain, looked at each other confused. "Piece... of... cake." The fighters turned around to notice that the powerful woman was standing awkwardly behind them just at the entrance of the palace. She was drained of energy once again and walked out a little further with much difficulty.

"How in the world did you manage to do that?" The knight spoke for everyone.

"No time..." She pointed a lazy finger at the large figure rushing towards them. The captain was now furiated and decided to attack himself. He charged forward wielding a big scythe.

* * *

 **Sharck's POV**

* * *

... I was in a dark place again. It was very foggy and I could not see anything. I remembered being in a similar scenario before. "Hero." That same voice from before.

"It's you again."

"I see that things have not been going so well for you and your partners."

"No. In fact, the last thing I remember is being beaten up pretty badly. I can't speak for the others though. How are they? Do you know?"

"Your friends need you right now more than they ever have hero. You must go back to them."

"How? And what can I do, get in the way? Distract the enemies? Face it, uhhh, my 'unconcious', I can't help them at all. They're much better without me. The most I can do is distract the enemies for a couple minutes, but I don't want to go through that pain again."

"You can do more than you think hero. You have an incredible ability you know."

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it's true."

"I can do a lot but fighting skeletons and mutated wolves isn't one of them. I don't see a point in me going back. Just take me home if you can please. I don't want to wake up this time. I just want to go home, back to where I belong and am safe."

"If you give up now, this world will be destroyed."

"I don't belong to this world so why should I care if it is destroyed? I don't know this place, I've never been here ever, and I wasn't the one who wanted to come here. Someone brought me here and I need them to take me back."

"Are you sure hero?"

"Look, I appreciate your confidence in me ma'am. You really did have me thinking I was actually going to be some superhero that helped save the world from this Demon King guy. But look at me. I'm no superhero, I'm not even a hero." I actually started feeling down..

"Hero?"

"Don't. Just tell me how to get home."

"Where is your home hero?"

"Uuugh! I don't know! You should know since you have been 'watching me' for a long time!" I was irritated in how her calmness was opposite to my frustration.

"Ahhh, I see."

"What?"

"I understand why you feel the way you do, why you are so irritated."

"Because I want to go home and you're not helping me, that's why."

"No. It's because you want to help your friends but you feel you don't have the power to do it. You wish you knew how because you really want to protect them."

"First of all, they are really not my friends. I only met them a couple days ago. I know you just as much as I know them. So, why do you continue to call them my partners, and my friends? I don't know them."

"You have a lot to learn I see."

"?" I didn't understand what she was talking about and clearly she wasn't paying attention to what I was saying, so I just stopped talking and tried to ignore her. She didn't even show herself this time anyway.

"Remember what I said before hero, you must not give up and think of yourself as too weak when trying to help your friends in battle."

I couldn't ignore her. "I don't even think they believe in my abilities. I mean, they're only letting me tag along because the princess asked them to. They know I don't have an ability and I know. The only one that seems to think I have this, power, is you."

"You must believe in yourself first. Then they can start believing in you too."

I threw my arms up to signify that I had had enough and I was done talking to her. "You obviously don't understand what I am saying."

I could feel her approach me from behind and she wrapped one of her wings around me. "I understand. You don't have to worry. No matter what, I will protect you my brave warrior." I could feel her softly rubbing her wing on my shoulders and back. She must have been trying to comfort me. I didn't feel that mad, enough for her to actually hold me. "You can do as you please. If you want to leave, then wake up and walk away." I had turned around to see that she had started fading away already. Something told me she didn't like the fact that I wanted to leave. It did seem cowardly. And honestly, I didn't want to.

* * *

 **3rd person POV**

* * *

Rose Knight and Green Ranger ran towards the large enemy. They left the distraught mage and once-again-drained woman alone for the moment. They ran down the large steps and met the enemy half way. The captain swung his scythe so wildly and with such rage that it wasn't too much of a bother to dodge his murdering attempts. They were still tired and never had a chance to get fully recovered though, so they had to be careful. "So much for keeping us alive," the knight had jokingly said.

"All of you will die now!" His rage had blinded him and dulled his senses quite a bit. He had no strategy in his attacks and swung carelessly hoping to catch someone slacking. He went for the decapitation and nothing else.

Green Ranger mainly tried to distract as Rose Knight attacked from a different angle. This strategy worked well, but the captain was no idiot. He soon realized that the archer wasn't attacking because she couldn't, that or her attacks were too weak to do any damage to him. So he focused on the warrior only. "Crap!" The knight had noticed this and started falling back. "Oh no, not this again." He expected yet another brutal beaten. Lucky for him he had backed into more skeletons who happened to be moving in slowly but keeping their distance to make sure they don't lose their head to a malignant swing. He was swallowed by their numbers and had to change targets. The skeletons now required his attention.

"AAARGH! You stupid idiot!" The big skeleton swung wildly and tried to reach his back. The Ranger had jumped on him and decided to beat him over the head with her bow. She kept trying and was focused on his head attempting to crack his skull. Multiple jabs at him and he became concerned that she would eventually succeed in puncturing his head. He spun around several times which made her dizzy. She kept at it until he decided to just fall on his back. He fell so that where she was would hit first, and he put all his force into it. She was too dizzy to contemplate his motives and held on as tight as she could, which unfortunately would cause her great pain. She felt every pain that covered her body like from the beating the heroes had received earlier. She was no longer able to hold on and lay flat against the ground with her appendages spread apart. She was all but dead.

The skeleton made a growling sound as he knew her condition and that the knight was occupied with his underlings. He went for the kill and brought his scythe down. Before he could complete the swing, he was hit with a big rock on the arm, making him miss his target. Without paying any mind to it, he gave it another try and the same thing happened, only this time, his weapon was knocked out of his hand. For a moment, he was confused and stared at his hands. Then he looked over at the woman who had blasted so many skeletons before, but she was still not looking so well and neither was the magician.

"Who wants to die now!?" He turned around and saw Sharck standing up with his functional arm outsretched in front of him pointing towards the captain's direction, he looked even confused as he stared at his own arm. "You! You should have stayed dead! Now I will kill you PAINFULLY!" He forgot about the archer, picked up his weapon, and ran towards the one he cursed. As he was halfway to his prey, he felt the ground beneath him shake and an arc of sun-colored energy passed by nearly hitting him. "Aaargh! YOU! I hate all of you!" He shouted into the air as he saw where that attack had come from. The knight stood by holding his sword and grinning, no enemies around him.

"Now that I remembered I could do that, you're going down buddy. The next one won't miss, I promise." The captain was alone now. He felt fear for a split second but summoned up rage again to continue attacking. He now ran towards the knight who had challenged his ability to survive such a weak skill. A big rock hit him on the side. He had let his rage get the better of him and now he couldn't control his instinct to attack whoever was attacking him so he had started running towards the one who threw the stone. The heroes caught on to this and started hitting and taunting him from opposite sides of the battlefield, allowing him to run back and forth as if playing a game of 'monkey in the middle'.

He kept running back and forth until finally, like before, he calmed down a bit and realized what was happening. He went for the frail man and would let nothing stop him. As he charged though, the same arc of energy that nearly missed him the first time had hit him this time, right in his back. He felt a part of himself separate from his body. One of his scapulas had been knocked off. He then threw his scythe at the one who damaged him, giving the knight a close call, and then continued charging towards Sharck. When he reached him, he swung his arm and hit Sharck across the chest, knocking him into the hard ground. Sharck had made no attempt to defend himself, which was strange to the captain. He wasn't finished however. He went for Sharck again and then another one of his major bones was removed. Using arms was no longer an option.

At this point, he knew he was not likely to make it. Somehow these filth had gotten the better of him. He stared over at Sharck, who was groaning in pain. He looked over at the two women, who were in no condition to fight, one way or another. He looked over at the knight who was currently getting up, staggering. Then he looked at Sharck and thought that one kill would be better than none. So he jumped high up in the air and flipped forward so that he would dive head first, hopefully crushing the man's skeletal system like so many of his skeleton partners had been. When he flipped over and was now facing backward upside down, he noticed his demise was staring right at him.

"Here, taste my fire ball you jerk!" Pyrona's staff, aiming right below his head as he was diving downward. She had stopped sulking and feeling guilty long enough to get close and shoot one of her signature blasts at the skeleton, obliterating his head and completely disintegrating his upper body. His legs fell a little away from Sharck's head. He was no more.

"Py...rona?" Sharck said weakly and was unsure of what had just happened and if the battle had just ended or not.

Pyrona only looked down at her partner, whom was still in a lot of pain. She dropped down next to him and laid her head on his chest, and weeped. She didn't cry for Sharck's condition, but for the whole incident. The fact that they were beaten and stripped of their weapons, the fact that they were caged like circus animals, the fact that one of them was taken away and thought to be dead, the fact that she had given up moments ago on making it out, and the fact that it was finally over, and that they were no longer in danger. She was a bit sensitive for weeping, yes, but someone had to. Sharck placed his hand over her head and gently stroke her hair, her hat nudging against his chin.

"I have to admit, we really know how to make each other worry." Rose Knight said as he dusted himself off and were on his way to the two. "I'm beat. Not as beat as you are though. How are you feeling Sharck?" He coughed in response, but remained still. "Yeah, me too. Let's get some rest." He looked over at Green Ranger and the woman who has yet to give her name, "Hey, are you two okay over there?"

"I'll be fine, thanks. I just need some time. Great job heroes, that was some good team work. You all need to rest now. You all deserve it." The woman spoke, the archer remaining motionless and quiet.

"Heh. You know, that's not a bad idea. One thing though, now that things are calm and not so grim, you mind telling us your name?"

"It's Vienna."

"Ah. Well, a pleasure to meet such a beauty."

"I'll watch over you as you all rest. I need some time to think things over."

"You want to think at a time like this, I'd say rest. Heh. No, it doesn't matter if you do or not, I'm going to stay up and keep watch. I have to stay up anyway. I have to make sure Green is okay, I didn't hear her say anything. Will we see ya tomorrow Miss Vienna?"

"Just Vienna is fine and yes, I will stay with you until you are all better and healed, I promised that before you helped me escape so I'll keep to it."

"We all helped each other, so no worries. I do have a question though, but maybe for another time. I need to rest now." The knight sat down next to the archer on the step and leaned back to get some rest, forgetting what he had just said about staying up to watch.

The heroes slept as Vienna thought to herself. She would rest too, but the passage of time was the only rest she needed. She thought about the heroes and their simple accomplishment and teamwork in such a dark outlook. They were cornered but these heroes weren't going to go down without a fight, and they didn't.

* * *

 **A/N: This may be my favorite chapter so far because I couldn't even predict parts of this chapter. Our heroes really need to train or they won't make it when they have to actually start fighting hard opponents. They get beat up too much.**

 **Anyways, I'm still continuing with this, it just may take me a little longer because I have been a bit more busy lately. I'm going to start adding the chapter names to the actual text as well, like I did on this one.**

 **Another main hero joins us next chapter. She has a fiery attitude (hint hint).**

 **Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it.**


	7. Cave Battle

**Disclaimer:** **I only own Sharck. I do not own any other character or setting in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7 - Cave Battle**

I woke up to someone kneeled over me. It was some lady I have yet to meet. She had her hands over me and was apparently mumbling something to herself. With coherent speech, she said, "Good, that's another one... How are you feeling? Are you able to move now, or do you think you need more?" I could hear her ask me these questions but I wasn't fully alert and awoke to comprehend enough and respond with an answer. I didn't say anything. The lady turned her head and spoke loudly over her shoulder, "This one doesn't speak?"

Someone else approached. "Eh, he'll be fine. We just need him to be able to get up so we can go ahead and go. I don't think anyone is going to want to carry him." It sounded like Rose Knight. "Green over there is capable now, thanks to you."

"Yes, she should be doing well enough by now." Her calm stare back towards me, "This one seems different, however."

"Oh yeah? How so?"

"It's not just simply healing him that I need to do. It's almost like there's something missing from him that contributes to his mortality."

"O...kay. And what does that mean?"

"Where did you find him?"

"Pyrona had said that he came from a very far away place. Only someone with a big brain could understand what that means or why he was all the way over on this land."

"Hmm." The woman stared at me.

I guess I could ask her something myself. "Hey, wh- Agghhh!" I had tried to sit up on my arms but only succeeded in producing a whole lot of pain for myself. I then started remembering that I was beaten up pretty badly.

"Don't move. Save your strength. Apparently you are not healed enough." She smiled at me. "At least you are able to talk now." She placed her hands over me once more. "What is your name hero?"

"Sharck." I could feel an ease entering my body.

"Sharck, I'm going to need you to stay still for me and don't try and move okay?"

"Okay."

Rose Knight just stood back and watched as the lady started mumbling again. She had on some plain t-shirt that read 'D.K.' on it. I couldn't tell if she had anything else on or not. Very high up on her thighs was visible to me, not that I was looking too hard. Her legs were nice though.

"This is taking up a lot of time. There has to be some way we can help you so that we can hurry up and go." Rose Knight said.

"Patience. It will take even longer the more you disturb me you know." He breathed in response and then walked away and allowed her to continue.

After only a short moment, I could feel complete relief on my muscles and noticed that I didn't feel like I was being crushed anymore when I tried to sit up. She looked rather calm and a little drained. I slowly, with some difficulty, stood up and thanked her. I put my hand out to help her up. I knew who she was. She healed me before. "You're Lunar right?"

"Who?" She leaned forward and turned her head to the side a little.

"Lunar, the priestess who saved me last time right?" She slowly shook her head. "You healed me back at the kingdom I think." She showed no signs of me being correct. "Huh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you someone else."

She smiled and said, "Vienna. Nice to meet you." She had finally grabbed my hand so that I could help her up. "How are you feeling now? Try and see if you can move around okay."

"Alright." I did just that, I moved around for a little while to make sure I was okay to do so on my own. "I think I'll be good."

"Good. Now here, take some of this bread for your stamina and drink this." I took the large loaf of bread and some sort of liquid placed in a vial. The bread was bland at best, nothing like the meal I received yesterday when I woke up. The drink had the nastiest aftertaste my tastebuds had ever quarreled with in a very long time. I tried to give her most of it back, but she told me to keep it and that I would need it. "You have to keep yourself replinished when you are in constant battle. You lost a lot of blood and somehow miraculously survived and was able to recover." She narrowed her eyes at me, "Hero, who are you? And by that I mean, where do you come from?"

"Huh?" I was taken aback by her sudden question. "Well, I come from a far far away place." Saying this was starting to become customary by now.

"Then why are you here?"

"Uhhh, well, I don't know."

"I find it hard to believe that you are all the way out here at a time like this and you do not know why. Hmmm..." She stared at me intensely as if trying to see through me causing me a little discomfort.

"Sharcky you're up!" Whew. I knew who that was and boy was I relieved that she interrupted my brief interrogation. Pyrona came over to me and gave me her usual bear-hug. I was expecting it to hurt, and it definitely did. I silently whimpered, but enjoyed the tight embrace. "Yay! Now we can go back to the castle where it's safe."

"Yeah, I believe we can go now. We have to report back to the princess." Green Ranger came up behind Pyrona and greeted the woman with a nod. She then looked at me and asked, "You think you're ready to walk back?"

"Yeah, I am." I gave a simple reply.

"Good, let us go then."

"Wait!" Rose Knight said walking towards us from a distance. "We can't leave yet."

"Why not? You were complaining about taking too long before and now you are saying that we cannot leave."

"Green listen, I was talking to Vienna while you all were still on your sides. No, I do not expect a thanks from you because I know I will not get one. Anyways, she told me that there was another survivor, one woman with blond long hair. It has to be Atalanta, and we can't come all the way here and not bring her back with us especially now that we know she is still alive."

"Rose Knight, Atalanta is not the only blond woman that exists in this world," Green Ranger responded.

"What if it is her though Green? What if we leave and it really was her that Vienna mentioned? Come on 'Leader', make a good decision."

Green Ranger turned towards Vienna. "Do you know how to get to where you last saw this 'woman with blond long hair'?" Vienna only replied by pointing in a direction behind Green Ranger. She turned around and then asked if we all were ready to go. 'Yes' was our unanimous answer.

We went on our way, everything being the same in terms of how we were as a group. There was only one thing that was different now, we had another member with us.

It seemed strange really. We kept running into trouble and would almost be dead after each battle. Somehow though, we end up pulling through. Damaged and beaten sure, but we pull through in the end and see another day. It doesn't take us long to heal, which is weird, and then we are ready to go at it again. I was really only tagging along because I didn't know where I was and they seemed helpful as far as helping me stay alive.

Mutated wolves, skeletons, a big skeleton, I have fought with all of these creatures. I do not feel any better about it, I just feel like I'm less ignorant of my situation, which is a good thing. I like to give myself a little excuse as to why I get beaten up, but the heroes should be more than capable for sure. Or have they not fought these kind of creatures before? Even still the heroes seem as though they know about these enemies and even the Demon King. A good question is, how come they get beat up so badly, like me. Oh well, they recover real fast too so there's nothing to really be concerned about. My 'subconcious' was also a mystery. I just couldn't understand how I was able to see the same person with the same voice inside my head when I was knocked out. It just didn't make sense. The only thing I could gather was that things were just different in this world.

* * *

We walked for a while before Vienna spoke up. "I never did say this but, thank you for saving me brave heroes... Thank you so much for rescuing me out of that monster's cage."

Rose Knight replied, "You're welcome. Trust me, we weren't going to let those brainless idiots do anything to ya."

"Yeah, we are always glad to help!" Pyrona beamed a smile at her.

Vienna gave a small smile back. "From now on, we shall fight together. I will make sure that I do my best to help you all." She glanced at all of us.

Pyrona nudged me on my shoulder, "You hear that Sharcky, she may be able to help you get back home." I could feel her breath as she was so close.

"Uhh, yeah, maybe." I said.

"What's the matter, don't you want to go back home?" She gave me the weirdest look.

"Yeah, I do but I really don't know how to describe where I was to anyone here. I don't think it would make sense anyway. It's like I just appeared out of nowhere and I can't just say that and expect anyone to know what I mean, or understand what I'm trying to say."

"Nonsense, you don't know until you try. We can find it. Leave it to us and we will help you find your home." Her outlook on certain things was just outrageous at the least sometimes. Even if I did find it, how would I get back? I don't remember coming here on purpose so how would I get back at my own will? "Though, maybe you shouldn't leave. Maybe you should stay here. Have you ever thought about that?" She suggested this to me as if this was something I should seriously consider.

"Stay here?"

"No way Pyrona." Green Ranger poked her nose into our conversation.

"Awww, you're no fun Greeny."

"We need to worry about something else right now so enough of this senseless talk."

Nothing further was said as we continued walking. We all eventually approached fog again. Vienna had suddenly stopped and trailed off mentally for a moment while staring ahead. She then told them what they wanted to hear. "Around here is where I last saw that woman," she said as she pointed into the fog.

"She may be past this fog then," Green Ranger surmised after hearing what Vienna said.

"I agree, we should go," Rose Knight said.

"What if she's in trouble?" Pyrona asked.

"That would be why we need to stop standing around and go." Rose Knight then proceeded with going ahead by himself.

"Ohhh, it's getting scary dark again, I don't want to go." Pyrona whined and grabbed Green Ranger's arm only to have it yanked away from her.

"Get off of me! Stop acting silly and let's go. The idiot Rose Knight obviously doesn't care about his life, so now we have to go get him as well." Vienna and I just stood back and watched. "Alright everyone, try not to separate this time. You ever had to deal with this before," she asked Vienna specifically.

Still looking ahead and starting to walk forward she replied, "I don't know why you ask that, but shouldn't we hurry and follow the knight?" As she was asking this question, she entered the fog herself.

Green Ranger looked at Pyrona and I, sighed, then simply followed the others.

Pyrona stood close to me looking ahead, not taking a step forward. "Pyrona, I... I want to thank you for what you said earlier, about helping me find my home. That means a lot to me you know. You've been helping me ever since I got here even though it's only been a few days. Thanks." She just kept staring forward. "Pyrona? You okay?" I asked as she simply stared into the fog. "Pyrona?" She didn't respond, so I touched her arm and she slowly turned her head to face me. "What's wrong?"

"Sharck..." She said this as if she was thinking out loud, not necessarily speaking to me.

"Pyrona, what's wrong?" I became concerned.

She squinted, shook her head, and then smiled at me. "What? Come on, let's go or we're going to get left behind." She said like her normal self as she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the fog with her. Ugh, what was that?

By now the fog had no noticable effect on my breathing whatsoever. I could probably stay in it for a while and not even cough once. It was a nice change. Pyrona held onto my hand as we hurried through. We exited in a very short time and met with two females, Green Ranger and Vienna. "Where's Rose Knight," I asked.

"He's probably ahead in that cave. The idiot is going to get us all into big trouble," Green Ranger answered my question.

"We should go after him while he is still okay," Vienna said.

"We shouldn't rush into this kind of situation."

"What kind of situation?"

"I've been hearing light growls ever since I exited the cloud. Something dangerous is in there."

"Maybe it's a whole bunch of bugs," Pyrona said. She earned a stare from the other two.

We were actually looking at a cave right now. The cave was very dark, though in about an hour, outside the cave will look very similar to the inside in terms of darkness. It didn't seem that big around and multiple people probably could not walk side-by-side comfortably once in it. The ceiling was probably only about eight feet high, nothing a flying bird would be able to gain much out of.

"We must hurry," Vienna looked at all of us as she said this. Green Ranger slowly entered the pitch-black cave. It was about time for us to find shelter anyways, so we all followed her lead, Vienna second, Pyrona third, and me at the tail.

"I can hear Rose Knight up ahead," Green Ranger said. It was pretty dark in this place so far as we walked further in.

"We're coming Rosie!" Pyrona's voice echoed throughout the tunnel loudly.

I started seeing light up ahead as we rushed towards Rose Knight. Once we reached this light, there was a massive change in the amount of space around us. The ceiling was probably well over one hundred feet high now, there was a pool of water sitting in a corner to our right, and there was light coming from crystals embedded into the dirt all around us. Where the hell were we? It reminded me of an igloo sort of, how the entrance was very narrow and then it widened up after reaching the open area.

"Wow, this looks beautiful!" Pyrona exclaimed.

"Yeah, it is. The outside doesn't compare at all to the inside," I had said.

"Look, there." Vienna had pointed towards where Rose Knight was fighting with some skeletons. He was a good distance away, but thanks to the light emanating from the crystals I could make out the fact that it was indeed Rose Knight. Green Ranger had already taken out her bow and ran towards where he was.

Rose Knight wasn't in too much trouble, he was just preoccupied it seemed. He would dodge and have a perfect counter ready, but wouldn't take it. Instead, he just kept running forward as if the skeletons were more like obstacles than enemies. What was he trying to get to?

"Alright you two, are you ready?" Pyrona asked Vienna and me. We both nodded and followed her down the same path Green Ranger had taken.

This place amazed me. We could see the other side of the wall, however, it still took a little while to get to where the other two now were.

"Rose Knight... what are you doing!?" Green Ranger questioned him as she shot and swung at some skeletons. He didn't reply and kept trekking through the enemies. "Listen if you keep running forward carelessly like... that, we are going to be in... ugh, big trouble!"

"Then turn around and go back! I'm not leaving until I find her!" Rose Knight had finally replied before being hit and knocked down by a group of skeletons.

Help arrived soon and they were dealt with in no time. "Are you two okay," Vienna asked concerned.

"We're fine," Green Ranger replied.

"Rosie what's wrong?" Pyrona asked Rose Knight.

He let out a breath as she helped him up. He opened his mouth to say something but then we all heard a voice and turned to face the direction it was coming from.

"Anybody there? Please help me... I'm badly injured." It was a woman, and she was in need of help apparently.

Rose Knight yelled out something and then took off towards the woman's voice. Green Ranger followed suit, then Pyrona.

"It must be the woman that I saw." Vienna said out loud. "Let's go hero."

The woman had coughed and then gave us a warning. "Wait! I think there is a strong monster lurking, tread carefully!"

"Wait Rose Kn- Damnit!" Green Ranger yelled as she hesitated. She turned around and yelled back at us, "Quickly, let's rescue her so we can get out of here!" She resumed following Rose Knight.

"What is it Greeny?" Pyrona asked as she tried to keep up with her.

"I don't know but it just doesn't seem right here." We all eventually caught up to Rose Knight who was searching around. "Is she here?" Green Ranger asked him, while also searching.

We were in a pretty wide open area still. The cave was much deeper than I had initially thought. We stepped through darkness and then ended up on another part of the cave that was pretty well lit by identical crystals like the area where the skeletons were. The issue now was if we were going to be able to find our way back out of here or not. I don't know about the others but I blindly followed Vienna here so I won't be able to find my way back.

"I don't see her. Did I imagine hearing her voice?" Rose Knight had swiped one his bangs from in front of his face as he said this.

"No. I heard her too." Green Ranger assured him. "She also warned us to tread carefully."

"This place is definitely gloomy," Vienna said.

"And look, there's big giant footprints." As soon as Pyrona said this, the whole cave started to tremble. Everyone widened the distance between their legs to get a better balance.

"Something is close." Rose Knight said.

"Prepare for combat." Pyrona had said as she pointed her staff in a random direction.

"Uhh!" Vienna grabbed her head and dropped down to her knees. I ran over to help her but she swiped at me and shook her head.

"Guys Vienna is in trouble!" I yelled to everyone.

"You all are in trouble." We all looked around to discern the voice and its source. It was boisterous and echoed throughout the entire cave. The cave shook some more. "Mortals, how dare you disturb my sleep? You shall pay with your lives if you do not leave at once!" The tremors became more violent.

"Show yourself! You sound tough and you talk like a big guy but you are still hiding!" Rose Knight taunted the voice. He was ready for battle. The person, or creature, behind the voice slowly showed itself as part of the big figure came to light. This thing was huge, dark, and scaley. It was dinosaur in size and looked reptilian even. We had disturbed a big dragon and it did not look happy. It looked ready to feast on its prey, or maybe cook us first. He growled softly threatening us to leave while we still could. No one seemed phased though. His dark scales representing armoured plates all around his body. His wings were large, tail long, and his claws were sharp and dug deep into the ground. He had streaks of glowing red all around his body that lit up when he growled. His eyes were the most noticeable part on him in this dimly lit place, as they shined a fiery-red color and seemed to pierce right through us. "We only came for the woman! We don't want to fight but we will if we have to!"

"So be it. Feel the wrath of the demons! My eternal fire will consume you!" It was time for another big battle already huh? Darn, and I still wasn't ready. It probably didn't matter anyway, we were about to take on a dragon. A dragon! The dragon wobbled towards us and sliced his big claw through the air we previously occupied barely a second ago. "Running will only make your end come much more painfully!"

"Eeeek!" Pyrona screamed as the claw had almost hit her after being swung at her again. He swung at anything he could see. Nothing was safe. He slashed his claws, hitting walls, knocking stalagmites and stalactites out of the way, he swung his entire body around trying to make sure we didn't escape.

"Any ideas!?" Rose Knight yelled out still making sure to dodge when necessary.

"We'll have to surround him first!" Green Ranger yelled back at him.

"Sounds like a- Ahh!" Rose Knight was interrupted as the dragon's tail knocked him into the wall. He flew quite a distance before landing in the pool of water. He didn't stay down long and was back up after staggering a bit. "Watch out for that tail!"

We ran around constantly, dodging and trying not to get hit more than anything else. No one had yet even tried to attack. The dragon was too big and he wasn't slow at all. His movements were swift and very well calculated. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's been disturbed too many times before and was very well experienced in attacking groups of people.

"I'll try and take him out with an arrow! Distract him!" Green Ranger had yelled out to us. He must have understood her as well as he swiped his tail towards her and caused her to lose her balance. He was quickly at her side and went to bite down on her, but a small flame had hit him on the side of his mouth, interrupting him just long enough so that Green Ranger could get back up on her feet and run.

I watched all of this happening and then realized that Vienna was still in a bad position, in very dangerous proximity to the dragon. If he knew she was so close to him, he would have easily scooped her up and ate her. She was probably safe because she wasn't moving in fact. I wanted to help her though. I ran over to her, dodging a couple indirect attacks from the dragon. His attacks weren't really focused on me at all, it was the cave itself that was causing me to have to move so much. Sharp sediments fell everywhere as the big black dragon caused earthquakes within the cave. I reached her after a few close calls. "Vienna! Come on it's not safe right here!" She was still crouched down holding her head. I tried to pick her up but was hit on the head with something. This had caused me to take too long supposedly. The dragon had ran towards us full force and swung a claw going in for the kill. I held Vienna close and shielded her as I closed my eyes expecting unbearable pain, something I still just wasn't used to... The pain did come, but it wasn't too bad. Vienna and I were thrown to the side landing some distance away from everyone else. She landed several feet away from me. My head was hurting a little, but I was more than okay to keep going. She was in a pretty safe zone for now, so I tried to run back to the battle. Before I took off, I was grabbed on my leg. I looked back and noticed that it wasn't Vienna, but some other woman.

"Don't go back out there just yet... Please, listen to what I have to say first." This blond woman pleaded as she coughed in between sentences. She was in bad shape. Was she the same woman we were looking for? It didn't matter, I didn't have time to think about this while the others were fighting for their lives.

I looked away from her before replying. "Sorry, but I have to go help the others first."

"No!... If you go back out there without a better plan you all will end up dead!" I don't know why, but somehow what she just said made me stop and listen. This or the fact that she was coughing quite a bit. I walked up to her so she wouldn't have to shout. "That dragon is not to be taken lightly at all. He's very smart.. and knows what he is doing. I've been watching you fight and noticed that you all are on the defense and haven't switched to attack... Your bodies will start to tire out soon and you will slow down without ever landing a single hit."

"That means we just have to beat him well before we tire out then." Besides, we did land a hit.

"He has high stamina and will tire out well after all of you do. He is just toying with you, he is much stronger than you.. think he is right now."

"What happened to you? Did the dragon do this?" She gave no response, but looked to the side with an annoyed look. "Can you help?" Why did I ask that? She looked like she was the one in need of help.

"No. The only thing we can do is get out of here. Look, you don't have to save me but at least make sure you and your friends make it out while you still can." I then noticed that she had a big boulder lying on top of her legs.

I rushed over to push it off of her, she hollered whenever I tried to push it though. I didn't know how to get it off, if I moved it at all, she would scream out. Ugh! I couldn't just leave her here but this was taking too long!

"EEEK!" I could hear Pyrona scream.

"I'm sorry but this is going to hurt a lot. It's the only way." I didn't know if it was or not, but I didn't have time to figure it out and I wasn't good at making smart decisions under such pressure.

"It's fine, I can take it." The woman surely lied to me.

"Ok, one. two. three!" I pushed as hard as I could as she hollered with just as much effort. I removed the boulder and made sure she was okay after she calmed down. She thanked me, then I was off.

I ran towards the dragon. Everyone else was still standing as far as I could tell. I rushed in to help in the fight.

"Hmmm... I suppose I shouldn't play with you much longer. Heheheh..." I thought I could see the dragon smile as his body started to light up. The streaks of light that covered his body glowed an immense light and he opened his mouth. Oh no.

"Everyone, take cover!" Green Ranger had yelled this. A second later, the entire cave was in flames. It was so bright that I could not see anything and had to shield my eyes with my arm. Next thing I knew, I was struck on the side and knocked into a wall. Ignoring the pain for a first time, I got up to see what had happened. The place was still lit up and I could see the dragon moving away from me.

Once the fire cleared I could see that someone was in the dragon's claw. "Ahhh, here's one. Hahaha!" He had Rose Knight pinned against a wall. Pyrona and Green Ranger ran towards him as he was being crushed. He screamed out in pain.

"We're coming Rosie!" Pyrona yelled out.

The dragon simply shifted his tail and kept the others from getting close. Green Ranger shot arrows at him and even hit him in the neck but it didn't stop him. In fact, he only laughed at their attempt at harming him. Rose Knight screamed out in more agony. "Rose Knight, hold on we're coming!" Green Ranger shouted. The dragon kept laughing.

After watching this for more than I could take, it was time to see what I could do. I was good at hurling rocks last time so let's see what happens this time. I picked up what I could find and hurled it as hard as I could. I don't know if it hit him or not, I don't recall seeing or hearing it after it left my hand. I do know that it didn't distract him. Pyrona and Green Ranger were shooting him with what they could, to no effect.

"We need to break through his armor somehow!" Green Ranger hollered out.

"Hmm, you may try, but it will only be a waste of time." The dragon said as he continued to fend off the rescuers of the person in his clutches. He started laughing again.

I tried again and still no reaction. He was toying with Rose Knight, enjoying his agony. I gave it one more try and threw the hardest I could possibly throw. It exploded on his back. It had a purple glow to it and, fortunately, caught his full attention. This blast, without a doubt, hit its mark and made him cry out in pain. Glowing liquid started oozing out of his back. The good thing is that he let Rose Knight go, but the problem with this is that he quickly turned to me. Ohh crap. I could count on two hands how many seconds he actually stared at me. Then, he roared his frustration out and charged at me, tail wagging wildly, keeping the others from attacking his back. I turned to run and noticed Vienna was behind me, looking tired. "Run!" I yelled to her and grabbed her arm and ran to take cover. I could feel the heat touch my back as I jumped into a ditch conveniently right next to her and big enough to fit a few people. I heard the dragon roar out loud again.

"How!? Come out of hiding so that I may rip you apart!" He sounded like a fiend for my flesh. I heard him roar again.

"I hit him!" I heard Pyrona yell. The dragon yelled out some more, and then ran away from where Vienna and I were.

"Vienna, are you okay?" I asked her as she sat right next to me with an embarrassed look on her face.

"Yes, thank you." She replied.

"Stay here, I'm going to go back and try and help."

"Be careful."

I jumped up to go help the others again. The cave lit up constantly now that the dragon was spewing out flames from his mouth. He was definitely mad now. His movements became less fluid and more rigid. He clawed at everyone with no restraint whatsoever.

"We have him where we want him!" Green Ranger shouted out making sure to dodge an incoming claw.

"I made it to Rosie Greeny!" Pyrona shouted to Green Ranger.

"That's good, now... help him get out of t- ooof!" Green Ranger was knocked into a wall. She was grabbed by the dragon's tail while still in mid-air and tossed a further distance than when first hit, causing her to hit another wall. The dragon roared as Pyrona had landed a hit on him again. Those big hurling fire balls she constantly shot at him didn't seem to hurt him too much, but they definitely demanded his full attention each time they successfully landed on his back, especially now that he had a wound. He turned to Pyrona and then started running towards her, but he stopped mid-way and started lighting up again.

"Pyrona, get down!" I yelled knowing she was about to get barbecued. Fortunately she didn't listen to me and ran for it. She was definitely close to the heat but she looked generally fine. For the moment it seemed like we weren't going to get much further in subduing this creature. The more we fought, the harder he fought back. We were in a stalemate and couldn't pull through here. The issue is that we were getting tired, he still had plenty of reserved energy sitting somewhere in his body. He was still able to move around as fast as when we first started this battle. I could tell that the others were starting to get tired because they wouldn't even move until they had to to avoid sudden death. I was going to help them, but there was clearly nothing I could do. I guess I could try throwing a rock and maybe it would explode again. So I threw rocks as I watched on, the two ladies still dodging and trying not to get hit. I didn't see Rose Knight, and Vienna was not too far behind me. What was left to do? I couldn't wound him again. Green Ranger was eventually taken out and lay against the hard ground. Pyrona didn't stand much of a chance by herself. She was dealt with quickly once her partner was down and out. Darnit, I have to help! The best thing for me to do is to hurry before it's too late.

"Hero!" A voice shouted from behind me. It was Vienna.

I turned to look at her and couldn't see her, so I ran and slid down next to her. She was still where I left her and still looked exhausted. "What is it? Are you okay?" I frantically looked for any signs of bruises or damage on her, not that I could see that well in this place.

"Nevermind that. I need you to take me to where that woman is. I need to help her."

"You, are you sure?"

"Yes. Please, take me to her. I have to try and help as much as I can." What was Vienna trying to prove? She looked as though she needed help.

"Alright, let's go. Hurry." I could hear her groan as I moved quickly away from her only stopping so she could catch up. We didn't have any luck finding the woman.

"Is she over here?"

"Uhh, I thought so. No way she moved, her legs were not in good enough condition." I heard the dragon roar loudly.

"Not. so. fast!" The cave brightened again as the dragon said this. I turned to see what was happening and noticed he was aiming right for us. The flames came towards us just like before except there was nowhere to hide in such a short time. I put my arms up to shield myself and hopefully keep my face from getting burned. I closed my eyes as I could only strain, holding my breath in anticipation of the pain of being burned while my nerves were still fully active.

Well, I could feel the heat, but it didn't actually burn me. I opened my eyes and noticed a wall in front of me. Vienna seemed okay as well as I turned around to her and noticed she was just fine. She stared at me funny though, or maybe she was staring at the wall. I didn't have any time to comprehend who had just saved me, or if that wall was there before, I had to take cover assuming the dragon was still after me.

A few seconds later, I could see someone far away walking awkwardly away slowly.

"Hero, look!" Vienna yelled to get my attention. She pointed at some big crevice in the wall of the cave. "I believe this is a way out." I didn't see what she was talking about unfortunately. "I believe this way leads to outside. Let's gather the others and make a run for it." She still didn't look so good, but I was going to trust her and believe she wasn't experiencing delusion.

"Alright, I'll go and tell the others. You go ahead and go. Wait for us on the other side." I told her.

"No, I won't leave you all." She just stubbornly stayed knelt down on the ground.

"Okay. I'll be right back." I took a breath and then headed for the dragon, who had apparently switched his target moments ago. "Guys are you all okay!?" I didn't receive a response. The dragon was still focused on something. I picked up a rock and tossed it, no effect. I needed to make sure everyone was okay and not dead. I would need to get out of here right now if they were already lost. I tried yelling again but no response still. I was close to the dragon now. "Green Ranger! Pyrona! Rose Knight!" Why couldn't they hear me? The dragon lit up his body and released some flames. I couldn't tell who his target was because he faced away from me and his body was so big I couldn't see around him. I'll have to get in front of him then, or at least beside him so I could see what was going on. I could see a dark figure lying down on the ground to the side of the dragon. I ran up to it, meanwhile making sure the dragon was still preoccupied with whatever held his attention so well. It was Pyrona. "Pyrona, get up. Come on." She twitched but she wouldn't wake up. She noticeably suffered a few burn marks on her side facing up. I looked around for the other two, then decided I need to just take her to where Vienna was waiting. I carefully picked her up bridal-style and hauled her where Vienna still was. Vienna quickly ran towards me once she realized that Pyrona was not doing so well.

"What happened?" She asked concerned.

"I'm not sure, she must have been burned by the flames. She's still very hot." I told Vienna.

"Alright leave her with me and- watch out!" Vienna tried to warn me as her eyes grew big and she hastefully moved towards me and touched my arms with both of her hands. I wasn't sure what was happening but I never felt anything. I turned around and the dragon was right behind us.

"Woman, who are you?" He asked, I'm guessing he was speaking to Vienna.

"Huh?" I heard her respond.

"The power resonating from you is a lot like my master's, only a lot less. No matter. You will die like the rest. Prepare yourself. Any last words?" His lips curled back forming a grin on his face.

"Try this one! Heyaah!" It was Rose Knight. He sent some form of energy in the shape of a crescent at the enemy. The dragon's face showed no signs of any worry. The energy hit him right on the mouth. The dragon only curled his lips and gave off a menacing smile.

"Hahaha! Was that supposed to hurt?" The dragon chuckled.

"No, but this should. Now Green!" Rose Knight yelled out and I could barely notice that Green Ranger stood opposite of where the dragon was facing. She shot off a volley of arrows at the back of the dragon's neck. The dragon screamed out and started to turn around, swinging his tail as to hit everyone. The others were the right amount of distance from him so that the tail wouldn't catch them. "See this is what happens when you think you are winning and start to relax, and now you are paying for it. Haha." Rose Knight taunted the dragon.

The dragon roared as he started to back away. He kept trying to face all of us, swinging his tail wildly as he backed away. He backed into a big opening, perfect fit for his body. "I'm done playing with you all. I'll let you leave now, but heed my warning, once my master comes and sees what you did here, she won't hesitate to find you and kill you." After saying this, he lay his head on his front two legs.

"Oh and we are supposed to let you live after saying that!?"

"No Rose Knight, don't bother him anymore. He's letting us leave, we should take this chance to get out of here while we still can." The blond woman was sitting up a little off to the side of Rose Knight.

"What are you saying!?" The woman only glared at him. "Tch! Let's get out of here then." He pointed at the dragon with his sword. "You are lucky this time dragon. Next time, it's just you and me, dragon-to-man." The dragon lifted his head and then lit up. "Okay, okay! We're leaving!" Rose Knight said as he threw his arms up.

"This way everyone." Vienna guided us to that opening she mentioned earlier. I don't know how I missed it the first time. Rose Knight picked up the woman and we all were on our way through this back passage.

It did eventually lead to the outside, not the same side we entered though. When we reached outside I noticed that it was night time, the only source of light being the moon, which was actually bright tonight. Usually Pyrona would light up her staff for warmth and more visible light, but she was currently out of it.

Rose Knight cared for the blonde, Green Ranger cared for Pyrona, and Vienna and I just sat together.

"... I'm sorry hero." Vienna suddenly said to me.

"Yeah, - wait, why are you sorry?" I asked still half dreaming.

"I'm not very good at my duty."

"Huh? What are you talking about? What duty?"

"I'm supposed to keep all of you safe, no matter what."

"Why are you putting all of this on yourself like that? We just met you."

"I promised I would look after you all, and yet, you were almost killed."

"I thought you were just going to help us, not become our guardians. I think we need to look out for each other, that's the best way. Not one looking out for everybody."

"You all have a lot of hardships ahead of you and you won't be able to withstand such beatings for much longer if you don't have better protection. The enemies are only going to get smarter and tougher as you progress. Your body and mind will eventually give out with such an amount of stress on it constantly... I may just not be strong enough."

"... How do you know this?" She didn't respond. "Well, don't worry about me, I'm probably not going to join this group anymore once we get back to the castle. I'm tired of this. It's too much."

"You want to leave?"

"I just want to get back home and not have to deal with so much stress."

"You know hero, you have not told me where you are actually from."

"I'm not from anywhere."

"Everyone comes from somewhere."

"Haha. Something like that I guess. Just consider me an alien then." I thought this would make her laugh or at least giggle.

"Okay. You may want to reconsider. They really care about you, and risk their lives to save you without hesitation."

"They are heroes, they'll save anybody."

"Yes, that may be true... Look." She pointed at Green Ranger or Pyrona, I couldn't tell since they were right next to each other. "She cares deeply for you, more than a hero cares for a person simply because he or she is in trouble." I didn't know what to say. How could someone feel that way about someone they just met not too long ago? It was creepy. "Tell me something hero, is it peaceful, the world you come from?"

"Huh? Well, I guess it is for me."

"Do you not have heroes in your world who fight to protect the innocent?"

"Well, yeah I do, sort of. It's not like these heroes though. They don't fight dragons and such. They protect from bad happenings if they can but not dragons and skeletons."

"So they are peaceful heroes?"

"Well, no, I mean, uhh, they fight nature or bad guys."

"Nature?"

"Yeah, like fires and floods. Animals sometimes."

"So even in your world, there is war, yes?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"So why are you so eager to go back?"

"Because this isn't my world." She looked right at me with a straight face as if she was waiting for me to say more. "Well, I guess our worlds are not THAT different. I really don't know. I do know that I haven't been here that long Vienna, and I don't see myself being here that much longer. Still, I can already feel a small attachment to these guys... Like we have already been through enough together for me to form a longlasting relationship. This, may be why I don't walk away the next chance I have to do so. I just can't leave them if I know I can help some kind of way."

She smiled. "We really are lucky to have someone like you on our side."

* * *

Pyrona had awakened by now and was in a bit of pain though she was able to walk and move around pretty decently. The best part was seeing her cheerful face as she noticed the blond woman sitting down next to Rose Knight. A moment even a heartless person would tingle a little inside after witnessing.

Well, for what it's worth, we made it out. Thank goodness. And the best part about it is that we saved someone in the process, and now it was time to go back to the castle. It was a happy moment. Rose Knight was extremely happy and laughing, Green Ranger was all smiles, Pyrona was her usual self, a little extra even, Vienna was quiet but she seemed at peace for the moment, and Atalanta, I later found out that that was her name, she was more than glad we came for her. Her legs were still damaged, but she seemed happy. It was a very joyous moment. I hardly knew anyone here, but just seeing how good this moment was for everyone really hit me in the heart. Sure, we almost died in the process, a few times actually. It seemed like every battle would be our last, but we kept fighting. Haha, I felt like a real hero. After all was said and done, I did take part in helping these heroes save those two women. I don't want to say they couldn't do it without me, but I did help. I wasn't just tagging along anymore, I really was a factor in this group. I was part of a group of heroes. I wanted to go back home still... but the more I thought about it... I don't know. I feel like it honestly wouldnt hurt if I stayed just a little while longer. I mean who knows, maybe I can help save this world like that woman with the wings said. You know what they say, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.' There was no point in fighting this strange occurence of arriving in this world, instead, I should enjoy it. So I shall.

We did what we came to do, we completed our mission. Our objective was to find out if there were any survivors left, and if so, bring them back with us. Otherwise, the knowledge of knowing that there were none would have been just the same. Welcome Vienna, and glad to meet you Atalanta. Now, onward to the castle, we have good news for the princess.

* * *

 **A/N: I guess the heroes should have some peace for a little while. It seems like everywhere they go is a brutal battle waiting. I think they need to train because Vienna is right.**

 **Good news for the heroes though, I don't think a battle is in the next chapter. ;)**

 **Thank you so much for reading if you still are. I apologize for the long pause between this chapter and the last one.**


	8. Forest Village part 1

**Disclaimer:** **I do not own a majority of the characters or settings in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade & Youzu Interactive Co. Ltd.**

 **I have not been putting Youzu in the disclaimer and realize that I should have this whole time.**

* * *

 **Chapter 8 - Forest Village**

"Brrr!" I had awoken and everyone else was still sleeping. We had made a camp right beside the cave, near a large body of water that resembled an ocean. Most of us were okay with the idea of resting right next to the place we were almost killed, and that the one who wanted to kill us was still in the cave we were lying next to. We were convinced that he would not be able to get out of the cave however.

The campfire had went out and I had woken up to the cool breeze giving me the shivers. I was curled up as tight as I could possibly be and still was not warm enough. My knees were all the way up to my chest and wrapped tightly around with my arms. "Brrr." The breeze was still too much for me to handle comfortably at the moment. The others were unaffected and sound asleep. They all looked fine and comfortable. I got up to take a walk, since I probably won't be able to go back to sleep anytime soon anyways. I'll just sit a little closer near the water and just marvel at such a sight, and maybe go for a little walk along the water just to see what's out there. Probably not too far though. There was plenty of moonlight tonight so I could actually see rather well.

I wasn't the type to have common sense when it came to being in an unknown location and just staying in that area with people who were familiar with it. I liked the adventurous aspect of venturing out alone sometimes, not necessarily looking for trouble either mind you. I just wanted to look around, without the hassles of being attacked. An observer, that's what I was. I liked to look at things live their life. The joys of enjoying someone else's predicamentwithout actually having to go through it myself. The things I could experience virtually was mind-boggling. Maybe that's why Youtube was so entertaining to me and I could lose countless hours to it a week. A vast amount of videos depicting all kinds of content. I could watch it all day if I didn't have to live my life as well. I wonder if this world had internet, and if so, would I be able to use it. I seriously doubt anyone has time for it here though. At least the moon was pretty, it's been so long since I actually just sat out and enjoyed it, along the much smaller looking stars. These kind of things amazed me. I wonder if my family and friends were missing me right now. What about Fox? I wonder if he's okay now that I'm not there to feed him. He is a smart one though. If he somehow made it here with me he'd be much better at surviving, that's for sure. I wonder what these guys would think of him. If someone else was brought here, I wonder if I would meet them. Ugh, so many things going on in my head right now.

"Hero."

"Ahh!" It felt like I jumped out of my skin as my body tensed. She was sitting right next to me.

"No need to be scared. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"... Yeah, I'm fine Vienna. You just startled me."

"I apologize."

"No it's alright. What's up? You too cold to go back to sleep too?"

"Uhh, no."

"Really? But all you have is a shirt. Looking at you makes me even colder. Brrr."

She examined herself. "How do you get cold by looking at me?"

"Uhh, I mean you look cold, that's all. You want my cloak or my boots since I'm not wearing them right now?"

"That is okay. You should wear them if you are cold."

"Yeah that does make sense." I lacked common sense.

"Is something troubling you?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm just cold and I know I won't be able to go back to sleep. So I decided to just sit around and look at the sky. It's beautiful. The sound of the waves is pleasant too." I shivered some more just thinking about the cold.

"Do you want me to wake up the others so that you can warm up?"

"No, that's okay. Thanks though." She stood up anyway and walked back to where the others were. Moments later I could hear her footsteps approaching. A blackened log dropped right next to me and she sat down, the small piece of log inbetween us. "Why'd you bring that over here?"

"Maybe if you look at the log you will get really warm since it has recently been burnt."

I tried to smile but I probably ended up looking more confused than anything. "No, I doubt that'll work. Thanks though." After staring at the moon for a while in silence I decided to compliment the moon again.

"Lunaria."

"Lunaria?" Sounded like a disease but what does that have to do with the moon.

"The moon goddess."

"The moon goddess?"

"With the moon she possesses great powers, and she would be very pleased to hear you speak of the moon in such regard."

"Really!? Wow. I wonder how it would be to meet a goddess."

Vienna closed her eyes and smiled, "Not any different than meeting a person you have never met before. You will never know unless you do battle with one or she tells you." She had to have been joking. I'd never battle a goddess, I'd lose for sure. I stared at her for a moment. She was staring at the sky leaning back on her arms, legs outstretched in front of her. Her dark curly hair hanging all the way down to the ground in her current sitting position. Her feet were bare. I stood up and went to go get the boots. When I came back, in the same way she dropped the log I dropped the boots, right in front of her though.

"Here, put these on if you're not going to go to sleep. At least protect your feet from the cold."

"That is not necessary."

"You've been without shoes this whole time?"

"Yes."

"Wow. Well I'll just leave them there then because I do not need them either."

"Hero." She stared at me.

"Yeah?"

"Are you still cold?"

"... No, not at all." I wasn't that cold anymore anyway.

"Then you must get your rest."

"Oh right, yeah. Thanks." I went back to where I had lied down earlier and continued what the cold breeze had interrupted. Nevermind the fact that she was up alone or that she was not planning on going back to sleep herself.

* * *

"Wakey wakey Sharcky Sharcky!"

"... Ugh. Morning Pyrona." My eyes were not ready for the sun's rays as I tried to open them as slowly as possible.

"Look!" As I fully opened my eyes I could see her pointing down in front of me at a plate of food on the ground.

"Oh thanks Pyrona."

"For what?"

"I meant for showing me that it was down here."

"Oh you're welcome Sharcky! Eat up, it's good!" She started with so much energy in the morning.

The food was delicious and very nourishing. I wanted to know who made it so I could properly thank them for it. The meat was cooked just right for me, juicy, loose, and tasty. The vegetables were outstanding, seasoned just right. I probably discouraged others from getting near me as I ate, my smacking chews were so loud and my eyes never left the food. I could still listen in on what was being discussed however.

"..." I could hear Rose Knight say something in a low tone like he was whispering a secret.

"Some things don't change even when I was close to death." Atalanta responded with an indifferent tone.

"Come on, surely you missed me a little more than a lot."

"I was only gone for a couple of days."

"I know. That's too much time to miss me."

"So how is Her Highness?"

His tone had changed into what I'm used to him sounding like. "She is doing alright. She will be very happy to see that you are still alive and well. She was worried very much about you, you and the others."

"We all were worried about you," Pyrona had said.

"That's good that Princess Lizeea is okay. And thank you." Atalanta sighed. "I'm not sure if I'm the only one that's alive or not."

Green Ranger added, "We checked and there was no one at the Royal Palace."

"Well we did find one thing. We found Vienna." Rose Knight said.

Atalanta with excitement in her voice, "Vienna!?... Vienna you're okay! I knew you would be. If I made it then surely you did too. Seeing you is just more of a relief." I didn't hear Vienna say anything back just then as there was a pause. "Vienna, what is the problem?"

I heard some shuffling and then Rose Knight yelled "Woah!" as I heard more shuffling. Still, I kept eating.

Vienna then said calmly, "I apologize but I do not remember meeting you. I shall formally introduce myself, I am-"

Atalanta had interrupted her, "Vienna, damnit." A little pause. "She is Vienna."

"We already know that silly Atty," Pyrona had said.

"Right, she helped us escape from the Royal Palace, which was infested with bones," Rose Knight added.

"Yes, but because of Demon King you do not remember everything. It is at least good to know that you are no longer being held or tortured. And where is your book, and your armor," Atalanta had inquired.

Vienna responded, "I do not know where my book is. I am looking for it and with it, I can assemble my armor."

"I think you look rather good with just a shirt," Rose Knight said while laughing.

"... To something that actually matters, who was left to guard Her Highness," Atalanta asked.

After finishing laughter, "Uhh, John."

"John?" She responded with obvious disapproval.

"Yeah, he's the main guard on duty while I am here."

"Noble Rose Knight, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about how I was ordered to go out on a mission, without the princess."

"But you left John in charge of her protection! You would have done just as good if you had left no one there!"

"She ordered me Atalanta. You know I can't just ignore her orders no matter how simple or stupid they are. Whether I agree with them or not, I trust in the kingdom's leader to give out proper orders."

"She is young and does not rule over the kingdom! Until we can confirm that her parents are indeed dead, she is just temporarily looking over everyone there. She is more of a substitute!"

"She will eventually be permanent anyway."

"She is in morbid danger now Rose Knight, I hope you understand this. We have to get back to her. This is the second time she has made a fool out of you and your 'noble' protection. The first almost got her killed. The second may destroy the kingdom, or worse."

"What could be worse than destroying the kingdom?"

Vienna gave her insight. "With the princess killed and the queen and king already gone, Ivalice will go into a state of chaos. Every part of the land this kingdom protects will no longer be protected and there will no longer be a place of peace. Inside the castle walls is the only place left in this area that is free from threat. With that gone it will only be a matter of time before rulers of other lands hear of this, plan to take over, and destroy Ivalice and all of its glory. Everyone will eventually succumb to the power of darkness and start to go mad. People will not hesitate to kill each other until everyone is dead. This is what the Demon King wants."

"Okay okay. But as a noble knight who has stood by the castle and its royalty since I was born, I will follow without question the orders of the Royal King, Queen, or any other heir to the family, you know this already. I did not make a mistake, she has plenty of others to protect her. I'm not the only one, just the best."

"And the dumbest. We have to get back to her quickly before it's too late. I just hope Demon King hasn't found her yet." Atalanta said.

"We were heading that way anyway," Green Ranger added in.

"Then let's go, we should hurry."

"I think that should be up to our leader." Rose Knight said this in the form of a pout.

"Leader? Who?"

"Our Lady Archer here."

"Green Ranger? And who's decision was this?"

"Princess Lizeea made Greeny captain of this crew," Pyrona said.

I heard a smacking noise and then a sigh, "I don't get why that matters now. You know we have never looked at one to be higher than another. This is not our code." There was a long moment of silence.

Then, Pyrona busted out laughing. "Uhh Sharck, you need to chew that before you choke." Rose Knight had said from a distance. I heeded his warning and slowed down and chewed more before each swallow. I was disappointed when I realized the good food was already gone. All that was left was bread.

After finishing the food and finally ready to direct my attention somewhere else, I could see the others were staring at me, Pyrona was laughing. I smiled at them with a feeling of embarassment, I had lost myself in the food. Good food was something I wasn't familiar with. I would cook, but I wasn't good at it at all. Most of the time I would eat fruit, cereal, sandwiches with sliced deli meat, or just microwave something. The only thing I could cook with some talent was a simple breakfast. I could make an excellent omelette too. I was just starting to get used to cooking some desserts like cakes, pies, and cookies before coming to this world. After finally leaving home and starting to actually cook, I noticed that cooking the food makes you eat a lot less versus just eating it or heating it up. I never understood that. None of that really matters right now however, not in this world anyway. I have to worry about staying alive more than trivial matters.

"Sooo, what's our destination?" Pyrona suddenly asked.

"More like 'where' and I do not know. We obviously do not want to go back into the cave and we cannot go that way unless we want to swim for a while. I say our only option is to go that way." Green Ranger had motioned towards woods which was fairly close by, maybe a five minute walk away.

"I have to agree with this." Atalanta said while getting up from sitting next to Rose Knight.

"Alright then let's go. Everyone ready?" We all nodded. We took off towards the woods. The large body of water hugged onto the outer portion of the woods and wrapped around the side. It must have been a really large river. Once we entered the woods everything seemed different, like a completely different world. The air was different, there were mushrooms the size of cars on the floor of the forest, plenty of color with pink and strawberry colored candy-caned shaped plants, blue and purple berries, moss covered cobblestone, vines hanging from trees, and tree roots that were well above ground. This forest was amazing and probably the most beautiful place I have been since coming to this world. So much nature and a sense of tranquility here. Right after the wild experience in the cave, this area has become a real relaxing change. "SMACK" Annnd of course there were bugs, which mosquitoes were one of the many species. In the distance we were coming up on civilization. There were houses, some in the very large trees with the roots hanging above ground.

"Wow! This place looks cool!" Pyrona showed excitement.

"This place is beautiful," Vienna said.

"This looks like an elf village." Green Ranger noticed looking around, her mouth slightly agape. I didn't remember seeing her put her hoody back on but most of her head was now covered.

The couple of people that came to the entrance to greet us were two adults, one much older looking than the other. The older was probably a chieftan of the village. He wore a hat full of colored leaves. Both of these guys wore shorts and no shoes. The younger fellow wore a robe while the older was bare-chested. "Welcome to our village." The older one said bowing his head a little and extending one of his arms, his other arm holding a stick. We all bowed our heads in greeting.

"Thank you. We are only asking permission to walk through, we are not interested in disturbing you any more than this," Atalanta spoke.

"Everyone is welcome here, so please, make yourselves at home, at least while you are here," the elder said.

Atalanta bowed. "Thank you."

"You all look like fighters. Are you all heroes," the younger fellow asked, for some reason he showed a lot of excitement.

"We serve the kingdom of Ivalice," Green Ranger simply stated.

"Then you are heroes! We shall celebrate! Let us throw a party this evening for the arrival of more heroes," the younger fellow exclaimed, glancing at all of us.

"There is no need to throw a party for us, we are just passing by," Atalanta said.

"Where are you bound then? Surely you are not passing by because there is nothing but forestry that way. The Bahlric River, and a mountain on the other side of that forest." He pointed to the opposite direction from where we entered the village. "The only reason you would be passing by is to see the Cayman Army."

"What is the Cayman Army," Pyrona asked.

"Yes, I have never heard of the Cayman Army. How long have you known about them," Green Ranger added.

"The Cayman Army is full of fully armored warriors and archers that are rumored to do as they please but claim they have no affiliation with the Demon King. A group of individuals who believe in the Demon King's ideology and nothing else," the elder stated.

"We have not seen them yet, and believe me when I say that is a good thing," the villager said as he laughed. His smiled quickly disappeared as he showed nervousness. "I sincerely hope you are not planning on going after them."

"Do not worry, we are not planning to disturb anyone. And if we do run into them, we will make sure not to involve anyone in this village with such an affair," Atalanta reassured him.

The man walked up to her and grabbed her hand and quickly bowed showing gratitude to her. He looked like he went in to give her hand a kiss but Atalanta repossessed it. She looked as if she wanted to strike him down immediately with her big heavy sword that was stuck in the ground.

"Do they not know that you are here?" Green Ranger asked another question.

"We cannot confirm that they don't, we only know that they have yet to attack us and that we must keep it that way. We are not ready for a battle from any army, especially one that size," the elder said.

"How do you know about their size? How do you get this information about them if you have never seen them?"

"A hero once told us about them, and that's the only information we have been given. For all we know, they may not be over there anymore or they may have never been there. What we don't want to do is find out that they are still over there or to accidentally trespass on their land. The best thing to do is to get prepared for the worst and keep praying for the best."

"That's why you heroes coming have been such a blessing for us! Thank the angels! Without you we all would still have to live in fear and uncertainty about our doomsday," the young villager said with a breath of relief.

"Thank you for the information. We shall surely take it into consideration," Atalanta said.

"Rumor has it, whoever they decide to attack will hear drums well before they reach them. An intimidating warning if you will." The villager was eager to share information about this Cayman Army. He clapped his hands and jumped in excitement as he said, "I'd love to talk more about this perculiar army but I must help prepare for tonight." He bowed and then sort of skidded off.

"Something is off about this. I am confident that now would be a worst time to celebrate," Vienna said to Rose Knight and me.

"Lighten up Gorgeous. They said we are going to have a party. You know what that means don't you?" Rose Knight said this with a sinister grin on his face. We waited for the answer. "... It means brew, food, and women, everything a man needs. So, I think we should enjoy this before wandering off again. It would be rude not to enjoy what they are going to take, probably all day, to prepare for us."

"Shouldn't we get to the castle already? We already have plenty of food and rest, we can make it back soon if we don't stop now." I gave my suggestion.

"You heard what these natives said, there is nothing that way except an army of people who have nothing better to do but kill other people. I say we relax, have fun, and then go out looking for trouble."

"You said that you were going to throw a party for the arrival of 'more' heroes right? Does that mean that they are still here," Green Ranger asked the elder.

"Yes, two women. One is looking for her, uhhh, flying horse." The elder's eyebrows furrowed.

"Two women huh. I'm really looking forward to this party now." Rose Knight thought out loud with a lewd smile on his face.

"Do you perhaps know them? The one with more years of experience in this world is wandering around the village helping us with anything we may need at the time, all the while she is asking about her, uhhh, magic horse. I still do not quite understand what she meant by that but she has been very helpful since her arrival. The other is back in my place resting up. She has suffered a terrible fate. Would you like to see them?"

"No, right now we would just like to rest a bit and get a better understanding of this Cayman Army before we head out that way if you do not mind," Atalanta said.

"Yes, come with me." Atalanta followed him along with Green Ranger and Pyrona.

"Ehhh, I am going to go and meet some of the villagers. Do not follow me." Rose Knight demanded of Vienna and me before walking away.

I watched him walk away for a moment. He seemed like he was hunting for something. "So Vienna, what do you want to do? We can-" I turned around to notice she was walking away. "Great." I guess it's time to explore this lushish place on my own. This place was built within a forest and had houses built in some of the trees. Loose bridges held together by a couple of thick ropes connected these treehouses. Wood flooring surrounded some of the trees, some seemed to have a purpose of being used as steps to get higher into the trees and others formed intersections high up in the trees. Giant mushrooms sat at the bottom of most of the moss covered slates on the ground. The sections were apart in a way that looked as though a long time ago, it was actually close together but the natural weathering and maybe tree roots had started pushing up on the rock slates and cracking and ultimately separating them. Some houses were on the ground and made of brick and maybe wood roofs. This place was the opposite of ugly, it was beautiful to look at at the least. It was a rainforest if I ever saw one and definitely was very muggy and moist in the air, but that wasn't enough to take away from it's loveliness.

I could hear some activity in some of the houses and see some of the villagers walking around. This place was smaller than the castle but felt more peaceful and secure here, even if they did mention the lurking Cayman Army. There was nowhere near as many people here as far as I could tell, but they seemed more lively and more content with their lives. Food here had to be plentiful because there was green all around, fruit from some of the bushes around some of the houses. Also there was plenty of water right outside this place. I feel like I could walk around this whole village and be done in about thirty minutes, round trip. Still, there was so much to see here that I have not seen before. The houses up in the trees were the most bizarre thing as I did not see anyone up there and I did not see the purpose of it at all. Why build houses in the trees? One thing was for sure though, I needed to explore this whole place before going to the elder's. Maybe somebody here could tell me how to get back home, to my own world.

I walked up to one of the villagers while she was washing cloths at a house, "Hello Ma'am. Can I ask you a question?" She stared at me with an annoyed look and said nothing. She was wearing a very simple cloth as a dress. "Do you know of anybody that may know something about other worlds?" She stopped what she was doing and stared at me some more before walking into the house, which was more of a hut. A man sooned exited, followed by the woman. That must have been her husband then.

"What do you want?" His voice was raspy and he looked tired. He was wearing simple clothing as well, just a shirt with quite an amount of holes in them and some messy loose-fitting pants.

"I'm trying to find another... world and I don't know where to find it so I was hoping someone from here would know about other worlds and how to travel to them."

The man looked at his wife and she looked at him. They both looked confused. "Another what now?"

"Another world."

"I'm sorry but, we don't have that stuff here in this village. You may have to ask the elder about that one 'cause we don't know. Or you can try diving into the river, maybe you'll find your answer there." I noticed two little girls in the doorway. He must have noticed me looking at them because he narrowed his eyes and signaled his wife to go inside. This particular family seemed odd, almost unapproachable. I hope everyone here wasn't like this. "Look, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to what I was doing. I suggest that you go ask the elder that one. Maybe he knows."

"Okay. Thank you." He went into the hut and slammed the door. I thought I could hear the wife yelling. Hmmm, I should probably not ask these kind of questions to just anybody. I couldn't imagine someone asking me these questions. Then again, I'd just tell them a space shuttle.

My feet were starting to hurt a lot now. Also, my legs were killing me. A nice hot bath was in order to top it off. The last time wasn't even much of a wash. I need soap, hot water, and a tub, or at least something I can submerge myself in. All this walking and no action made me start to notice the simple aches on my muscles. I walked around some more until I came upon a group standing to the side ahead of me. I didn't want to interrupt whatever they were conversing about so I waited. "Ah it is you! You are one of the heroes we are throwing a celebration for! Where is the rest of your group?" He spoke like an announcer and showed excitement in almost every word.

"I am wondering that myself. Do you know where the elder's house is?"

"Ah yes, I can take you there if you wish."

"Yes please."

"Uhhh, don't you think you need to stay here and help us with this? You are the one who knows what is supposed to go where after all." One of the guys said to him before he could lead me away.

He sighed and slapped himself in the forehead, "Darn that's right. I'm sorry but I can't leave this matter right now, it is too important. I can point you in the right direction, you can't miss it!" He pointed in a general direction and described, with that certain manner of his, what the house looked like. Based off of his description I knew almost how to get there. If it wasn't for someone from the group calling out to him he probably would have took forever anyway. I thanked him and just assumed I had to go straight.

I probably looked lost how much I looked around at my surroundings, turning my head like a pendulum to get a good look at the nature of this place.

"Hero."

"Huh? Did someone say something to me?" I wasn't the only hero in this village but I was the only one around at the moment. So who said that?

"I am glad to see that you are still doing well and that you are willing to stay a bit longer here in this world with us."

"Uhhh, yeaaah. I thought I had to be unconcious for you to talk to me." She was talking to me while I was wide awake?

"I am just checking in on you and I wanted to let you know that I am still watching over you and your group."

"So you can talk to me anytime you want then?"

"It is not quite that simple but yes."

"Cool. So, can you tell me about this village?"

"Our conversation must be brief, I apologize. I do not have enough time to tell you anything."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, do not worry. I just wanted to let you know that you are doing a very good deed."

"Okay. Thanks." Was this actually necessary? What did I do that was so good that would merit such a brief compliment?

"Are you okay Sir."

Shoot. Someone had just spoke to me probably thinking I was just talking to myself. "Uhh, yeah I'm fine. I'm just having these weird thoughts." I tried to smile.

Apparently I said something crazy because her eyes grew large and she jumped at me and quickly wrapped her arms around me. She wasn't hugging me, but she was restraining me and yelling at the same time. "Don't do it! There must be a better way!"

"Get off of me you crazy woman!" I shouted back and tried to fight my way out. She was too strong however and I only succeeded in hitting my head on her armor giving myself a headache.

"Don't worry, I won't let you do anything crazy!"

"Let me go!" People started walking towards us now and I was no closer to getting loose.

"Rurn said the same thing and then she carved her eyes out!"

"What!? What are you even talking about!?"

I stopped struggling which caused her to loosen her grip only a little. "Okay I'm going to let you go now! Don't try anything funny!"

"OKAY!" She slowly released me as I jerked away from her. "What the hell was that about?" I rubbed my head to make sure I didn't have a knot.

"Is something wrong madam," a man from what appears to have been a gathering crowd asked. We drew a small crowd towards us, some look like they wanted to fight.

"No I am fine, thank you. I am just worried for this fellow. He spoke like Rurn did."

"Isn't Rurn the young hero you brought with you," another guy asked.

"Yes. She should be resting now at the elder's place."

"You have been helping us around with so much we'll gladly help you with anything, just let us know." Most of these guys, all of them males, gave me a mean stare as one of them said this.

"Don't mention it. Truly, I was just concerned about this man's mental state." The men started walking off now. "I'm sorry, I may have reacted pretty fast there. I was just worried that you would try and harm yourself," she said to me while smiling. "I'm Valkyrie. How are you?" She was about my height, maybe an inch taller. Her hair was very thick and stretched down to her butt, one thing I'm starting to notice about females that I have met since coming here. They definitely let their hair grow long. For heroes though this wouldn't make sense in a battle as it would most likely just get in the way while twisting and turning. Maybe it was attributed to their "essence". Anyways, her eyebrows were sharp and gave her a slightly intimidating look, like she was serious, but looking at her mouth she obviously was smiling. Her armor left her stomach wide open and only covered her breasts, neck, arms, and legs. She looked well underdressed for any battling occasion. Maybe she was royalty here and just liked to show skin. "Hey, have you seen a pony walking around anywhere, maybe flying?"

"No, I have not seen any ponies." Was she the hero the older guy was talking about earlier looking for a magical horse?

She looked all around her frowning. "I was separated from him after I fell from the sky. I haven't seen him since."

"I do not know. Maybe he is looking for you as well." I admit I was still a little annoyed with her for grabbing me earlier. I don't even know what she just said.

"I don't know if he came here or not but this is the first place I found. I only found Rurn before I got here."

"Who is Rurn, you keep bringing her up?"

"She is a girl I found a few days ago out on her own. She has lost her eyes since and now needs a lot of rest."

"She's here with you too then?"

"Yes, she's resting at the elder's."

"If I find a... pony, I'll try and find you and let you know." A pony?

"Thanks, I'll be walking around looking for him myself." She started walking off until a small group of three approached her. I just stared on and listened.

"Hi Madam Valkyrie," they all three said as they saluted her.

"Hello Charles, Brenda, and Frey." They were apparrently ecstatic that she remembered who they were. "What are you three up to?"

"We're just going on an adventure. Can you come with us please? We want to see the mountain near the Bahlric River." The biggest one, Charles, appeared to be leading this escapade. He was probably the eldest out of the three.

"Sure. But I have to talk to your parents first before I let you go." Immediately after saying this, their moods changed drastically, especially the two little girls.

"Their parents don't let them do anything. I had to sneak them out just to get them away from their house. If they go back now then they will be in a lot of trouble for nothing. At least let them have fun first please Madam Valkyrie."

"Charles you shouldn't take them from their parents. Their parents may be worried about them." The boy said nothing. Valkyrie placed her hands on the girls' shoulders. "Listen, you can come with me and help me look for my pony, but I won't lie to your parents if they happen to hear that you two are with me. Okay?" The girls probably heard nothing but "you can come" as they shivered in excitement throughout most of her statement. They hugged Valkyrie tightly. "You can come too Charles." He nodded while smiling. One of the girls must have asked her something about me because Valkyrie glanced at me. I could make out some of the words she replied with, "I don't know. He's... bad guy..."

So they went off and I was alone again. I could actually see Rose Knight talking to a crowd of mostly women. He seemed pretty happy with the situation. I could see a lot of others active and moving things around. I guess these were busy times.

Based on the guy's description, the house was only about one hundred yards away. As I approached it, I saw them all walking out. "Hey it's Sharcky!"

"Hi guys." I waved at all of them and only Pyrona seemed to care enough to wave back. The other three must not have heard me.

Pyrona ran up to me and gave me a hug. "Hey Sharcky we have a lot to tell you!"

"Hold it Pyrona. This is very detailed information, we do not need to just go telling everyone what we just heard." Atalanta protested the idea.

"Why not!? He's with us."

"Yes, he is for now. Still, we are unsure of who he really is."

"Oh pooey!" Pyrona looked at me and whispered, "I'm still going to tell you later." She winked.

"Where's Rose Knight and Vienna," Green Ranger asked me.

"I don't know. I never saw Vienna once we all separated and Rose Knight was with a group of people not far away from here," I said.

"Hmm, we need to gather everyone up so that they know what we must do next," Atalanta said.

"Oh so we are about to leave then?"

"Not quite yet, but I have something I need to discuss with at least Rose Knight."

We walked to some vacant house in the tree, which Green Ranger was the only one who opposed such an idea. The house way up in the trees were very tight and fit for probably only a few people comfortably. Green Ranger said that they looked more like lookouts than houses. The wood we walked on was sturdy. There was no sign of abandonment up here in these houses. The question is why didn't anyone live up here if they were maintaining it. And why were we sent here to rest? Were we really looked at as superior people here?

"Okay. I need to rest for a bit, I feel like my soul was partially sucked out of me ever since I battled with Demon King. When I wake up we can leave this place and hurry back to the castle." Atalanta approached a sturdy looking bed and lied down.

"Want me to tell you a story before you go to sleep," Pyrona asked.

"No. I'd rather you just let me rest," she said as she faced away from us.

"Okay, we'll go and look for the others then. Come on guys!" We walked down the spiral steps that led back down to the ground.

* * *

 **A/N: I know this chapter ended suddenly and didn't have much going on but it's story-building. It's also not too long. :(**

 **Next chapter, some more forest.**

 **Thank you very much for reading. :)**


	9. Forest Village part 2

**Disclaimer:** **I do not own a majority of the characters or settings in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade & Youzu Interactive Co. Ltd.**

* * *

 **Chapter 9 - Wander And Celebrate**

"I am not confident that what the elder said is all true. He seems like he is hiding something he doesn't want us to know about. I doubt that he would know about a threat for this long and make no attempt at preparing a defensive countermeasure."

"Yeah Greeny I agree."

"We have to be on guard here, something just doesn't seem right."

"Well Greeny... I agree. I feel like this place isn't as peaceful as it seems either."

"Right. We should keep an eye out for anything suspicious. For now, let's find the other two so we can come back and discuss our way out of here without causing any commotion."

Green Ranger, Pyrona, and I were on a search for Rose Knight and Vienna. It didn't take us long to find Rose Knight as he was still where I last saw him. Pyrona had called out to him but he didn't appear to hear her. Then she called out to him again even louder and he looked up and then grabbed two women by their waists, turned around, and started walking in the opposite direction. Pyrona stood puzzled at first until Green Ranger had decided to forget about him and go look for Vienna. "Stupid Rosie. Now we have to go look for him again after we find Vienna." We searched and searched some more, wandering for minutes.

"Hey did you guys happen to see a pony around here anywhere?" Maybe they happened upon it and weren't sure who's it was.

"Oooh I want one!" Pyrona became excited.

"No Pyrona the pony already belongs to someone else."

"Why are you asking about a pony?" I guess Green Ranger saw no reason for me to be concerned about such a thing.

"I met this woman named Valkyrie earlier and she said that she lost her pony after she fell off from him. I haven't seen anything that resembles a horse so far so I was wondering if you guys had better luck finding this creature."

"We have not seen any large animals around. We were at the elder's place since we arrived so we were not likely to see anything that you did not see." We walked around some more seemingly on the outskirts of the village. We heard commotion coming from our right side but saw no one as we were out a little ways from the center of the main part of the village. Our feet crushed the still life under us, making a light crunchy sound with each step we took. Pyrona had pointed out a few things with the plants and telling Green Ranger and I how some of the colorful ones were deadly if eaten without cooking them properly. She also exclaimed how excited she would be if we visited her back at her home so that we may learn of some of her customs. Green Ranger had mentioned that she already knew of some of the customs Pyrona shared with her before, causing Pyrona to thrust her lips out.

"Since you were in the elder's place did you see a girl named Rurn there?" I had suddenly remembered Valkyrie mentioning her and she did say that she was at the elder's.

"A girl named Rurn?"

"I don't know her myself, I just heard that she's one of the heroes here."

"Well Pring didn't seem too surprised when we arrived at his house and no one was there. I was wondering about that, he did say that one of them would be at his house."

"Oooh, maybe she's the pony and she escaped!" Pyrona gasped loudly. "Or maybe she's in trouble and the Kuyman Army got her! We have to go save her."

"... We should find Vienna first, go back and talk to Atalanta, and then head to the castle before we go on some needless search for a girl we have never seen for ourselves but only heard of and a creature we do not know exists." Green Ranger was probably very used to Pyrona's quotidian childlike behavior.

"... Hey Sharcky?"

"Uhh, yeah?" Pyrona had grabbed onto my arm and started walking with me, leaning a little into my body.

"Let's leave Greeny, she's boring." Green Ranger had noticeably rolled her eyes.

"Where do you think we should look? They could be together, but where?"

"Oooh let's go check near the water!" Pyrona let go of me and ran towards the woods. Green Ranger sighed and walked after her. Before I started following both of them I heard a noise coming from one of the bushes nearby. I turned to look and noticed that someone small was staring at me.

"Who are you?" Hmm, whoever it was had just disappeared. I narrowed my eyes to get a better look but it had no noticeable effect. I cautiously approached where I assume the person was to make sure what I saw wasn't just an illusion. The fact that this person was a child who appeared to be out here on their own was enough for me to branch off from the others just a bit. In the ways of a good samaritan of the world I wanted to make sure that this was not a child left out on their own. Now that I think about it they were probably one of the girls that was with Valkyrie. She probably was just lost and scared. I couldn't do much but I could at least make sure she was okay. I went for the bush and prepared for the child to jump out at me trying to give me a jumpscare. As I looked I only confirmed that what I was seeing was just an illusion. There was nobody there. I separated from the others for now but that was okay as I was in a generally safe area so I didn't have to worry about getting into any fights. So, I ventured into the forest some more. If we split up we would cover more ground anyway.

I wonder how the summer is here, it must be scorching hot and humid on the hottest of summer days with all of this green lush forest and then a river close by.

I stumbled upon a lake or pond of some sort. Wasn't Pyrona just talking about running toward the water? There were animals here-and-there and a plethora of plants and flowers scattered about. These plants looked rich and were not missing on nutrition. They were very healthy looking. It was strange because EVERY plant looked undisturbed, I mean none of them were wilting or eaten by bugs. Did this water have something to do with this perhaps? It was beautiful, but very strange. I never saw anything like it.

I looked up and noticed a brownish-orange bird standing on a branch a few feet away from me with its head cocked to one side. I stared at it; it stared at me. I made sure not to move much and startle it. Just then I heard another noise and the bird flew away. It sounded like a water splash or like a small rock dropped into the water. There were noises all around but the water splash was very distinct for some reason. I searched and searched until I came across a green gem. This gem was a pretty big one and glowed a little. I wasn't going to take it as I didn't know who it belonged to if it did belong to anyone. It was just out here on its own, but no way I was the first person to come across it, right? It was surrounded by barbed stems so I couldn't just pick it up without regretting it anyhow. Hmmm, maybe another time. Man, everything about this place was just something to marvel at. I leaned in to get a better look at it.

"Tehe." I heard giggling. I looked to my right and left focusing my hearing and sights toward all directions. I still could not figure out who was near me or where he or she was. Oh well, the water was another thing that looked amazing. It was the centerpiece of this entire little area outside the village and was as reflective as to allow me to only see the surface. I looked at myself as I caught my reflection. My mohawk hadn't been picked out so it was way more flat against my head than usual and was more than rough looking. Anyway this place seemed sacred at the least and I didn't want to barge in on anyone's sacred grounds. It just looked too amazing. Birds were singing, bugs were chirping, and little critters were scurrying around. The only noise that seemed unnatural was that giggling and the splash of water I heard a moment ago. The water was very still despite the fact that there were hundreds of creatures out here that needed to no doubt quench their thirst or take a good bath.

The plants that surrounded it formed a large three-to-six foot barrier around the pond. "That's strange, I don't remember stepping over any plants to get to this. In fact, I don't think these plants were here when I first walked in."

"What do you want?" I felt something sharp poke me in my back. Whoever she was startled me quite a bit and I almost screamed. I put my hands up to show that I was no threat whatsoever to her. I tried to turn my head slowly and get a peek at who my assailant was but she poked my back a bit harder. "Answer me!"

"I- I- I don't know! Did I do something wrong!? I- I didn't mean to!"

"I won't swither to murder you. Now tell me why you're here." She shoved me in my lower back with her hand. "Did you take anything?"

"No!"

"Then go!"

"Okay I'm sorry, I'll go." I sounded more scared than I could be proud of. I took a deep breath and stupidly turned around. I think I was too nervous to comprehend the situation and how turning around could have made it a last decision for me. It was a young girl though, guessing by the voice and her size. She wore a hoody similar to the one Pyrona gave me so I could not see her face even in all this daylight. Huh, she held a flimsy stick in her hand. It was sharp at the edge but not exactly a strong looking weapon. It looked as though she had a better chance at breaking the stick than breaking my skin if pushed against me hard enough because it was so thin. In fact I could have probably just disarmed her and broke the stick myself, against my body even to prove how flimsy it was.

She shoved the pointed stick right back towards me breaking my virtual personal space bubble. "Why haven't you left yet!?"

"Okay!" I put my hands back up and took a couple steps back. She didn't make any advances toward me once I was a decent distance away. Darn, I have to go find the others.

* * *

"Sharcky where were you?" Pyrona asked me. I had run up to Pyrona and Green Ranger after running straight from my encounter. They were a little distance away from where I last left them.

I caught my breath for a bit bending over and placing my hands on my knees. "Guys!... I was almost killed just now!"

They looked at each other. Green Ranger spoke. "Wait, what are you referring to? Why are you frantic?"

"I almost got killed!"

"Calm down and stop being an idiot. What are you running from?"

"I wasn't really running from her I just was hoping you guys knew something about the villagers around here. Like, are there any warriors here that belong here!?"

Green Ranger shook her head and looked at me with a strange face. "What are you talking about? I cannot understand you."

"The elder never told you anything about anybody here? Maybe someone who wears a hoody and threatens people with a stick." She shook her head in response.

"Did you find Vienna Sharcky?"

"No Pyrona but I did find a decent sized lake. I also found a gem sitting deep within the forest."

"Oooh did you get it?"

"No. It was surrounded by thorny branches and then I was almost stabbed in the back for trying to get closer to it!"

Pyrona gasped. "Maybe they were part of the Cayman Army and were spying on you!"

"No Pyrona, we have to find Vienna, grab Rose Knight and then go to Atalanta and discuss our next move based on what we were told from the elder, nothing else."

"Aww come on Greeny, stop being so boring. Someone tried to kill our Sharcky and now we have to find them and make them pay."

"Well, not exactly tried to k-" Pyrona shoved me before I could finish my statement.

"Shhh Sharcky, you are in shock. Don't worry we will find him and bring him to justice."

"Ugh, we are not going anywhere. Now let's find Vienna," Green Ranger said.

"Well, okay. Maybe we'll find him while looking for Vienna," Pyrona said.

I never thought the Cayman Army would be spying on us. That would kind of explain why they weren't attacking yet. Maybe word got out that heroes were here and that stirred up enough from the army to send some spies here. Whoever she was, if no one else saw her then I'm going to pretend I didn't either. We started looking around for Vienna. We were a little further away from the village now and the river was right next to us. It was a pretty big one and we would have been fools to try and wade across it. "Hey." Green Ranger suddenly said to Pyrona.

"Yeah Greeny?"

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I feel just super. Why are you asking?"

"Well, yo-"

"Look, there's Vienna!"

"...Ugh, you don't have to shout, I see her. Come on," Green Ranger replied while covering her ears.

"Hey Vienna!" Pyrona shouted even louder as we walked up to her. Vienna was kneeling down near the river but turned around to face us, revealing she was holding a big rock in her arms. "Oooh what did you find?"

"Hi heroes. Did you find out anything from the elder?" Vienna had asked.

"He told us quite a bit but I think the main thing we need to concern ourselves with is whether all of it is true. Some of the things he told us were unbelievable. I honestly do not see how he can know about such an army for so long and not build up a defense," Green Ranger said.

"We believe he's hiding something," Pyrona added. "How come you didn't tell us you were leaving?"

"I apologize for leaving, I just wanted to see if I could find my book and some more of my shards," Vienna said.

"Did you find any," I asked.

"Yes. I found a few, and now my stone glows as you can see." The three of us stared at it in wonderment. The gem in her arms was glowing a little bit. "The brightness of it signifies the completeness of it and the closer to one hundred percent my powers are." We all stared for a little while longer. "I haven't found many in a while so I think I'll put it back." After saying this she hugged the stone tightly and it shrunk until it disappeared. I was astonished at this. Vienna had so much power it seemed. She was a mysterious woman to say the least and it bothered me that someone of her power could be captured and made powerless.

"Hey Vienna did you see a little mean boy trying to stab people in the back," Pyrona asked. I wasn't sure why she referred to the little girl as a boy. Vienna looked up and then looked at us and shook her head. "Sharcky was attacked by a boy and he tried to stab him in the back." Vienna walked towards me with concern on her face.

I smiled and backed away while saying, "No no I'm fine I'm just wondering if anyone knew about someone like that here. The person was assertive but nice as well."

"I did see a woman with three children walking around here. None of them looked like they had weapons however," Vienna said.

"Well we need to head back and go get Rose Knight," Green Ranger said.

"Wait." Green Ranger turned around and looked at me like she wanted me to go drown somewhere. She probably wanted to pull out an arrow but we didn't carry any weapons with us. "I did find one of those gems where that person was. It was covered by thorny bushes and vines but it looked just like yours, it was just a different color." Vienna asked me where from did I see this gem and I pointed straight behind me. She simply stared and then said that she would have to visit the area before we left.

We went back to where we last saw Rose Knight and sure enough he was still there, rather inside the housing he was standing next to instead of outside. This place looked like a pub. We only found him because we just happened to check and make sure if he was in there or not. Green Ranger commanded for him to come on. He resisted at first but then conceded. "Why are you telling me to come on if the celebration hasn't started yet?" Rose Knight complained, others looking on and maybe even attempting to instigate the moment a little.

"We have to go get ready." Green Ranger said this in a flat tone not even waiting for him to get close so that he could better hear her. Rose Knight complained some more and then finally became quiet. Most of everybody watching seemed mildly disappointed about the situation and waved at him when he left, hoping to see him again tonight.

The sun maybe had another hour before turning in for the night as we had just arrived back at the treehouse Atalanta was sleeping in. She was still asleep when we entered, so Vienna touched her to wake her up.

She stretched and yawned while sitting up, moved her arms and neck and wiped her face with her hands. She looked as though she still did not quite have enough sleep. "Glad you all could make it. Alright, so let's begin this little meeting."

"Oooh can I go first," Pyrona asked.

"Wait Pryona, I have some things I want to go ahead and share first." Atalanta pointed at Pyrona and Green Ranger and then spoke with everyone. "As you two already know, the elder, who is known as Pring, has requested that we stay and protect them, offering us a nice place to stay and some gold. We know that we are not here to protect anyone, we were actually going to push through but I became a little curious about this army that they spoke of and if they were any real threat or concern to anyone here. I am glad that we were able to rest and relax here, the fact that they allowed us to stay here for a little while means a lot, but we are not hired mercenaries and we are not going to be. Now, what do you all think? I don't want to be the only one making a decision, we are partners after all."

"Come on Atalanta, surely we don't have to do this right now, we aren't even in the castle. It's okay to be a little informal sometimes," Rose Knight said while flicking a rose in between his fingers.

"We still have to get everyone's opinion Rose Knight."

"Tch, whatever." He turned around and looked out the door frame.

She narrowed her eyes and groaned at his response. "So, who thinks we should help them by staying here for a little while." Pyrona and Vienna raised their hands.

Green Ranger spoke up, "We'll be wasting time if we just stay here. If they have not been attacked already then they are not going to be just because we are here. In fact, we may lead the Cayman Army toward this area if we stay. I say we continue on our way."

"I agree. Besides, we need to hurry and make it back to the princess. Every moment counts and the fact that we are resting now makes it that much more important to not waste anymore time. We already know that we'll have to push through the army which will take a lot of time from us more than likely."

"Why don't we just go back through the cave again since we know that that is the way we came from and we can just follow our footsteps back?" I figure that if we wanted to get back the quickest way we should retrace our steps.

"We could go get ourselves killed." I sensed sarcasm coming from Atalanta.

"I actually agree with Sharck. Once we leave we should go pay that dragon another visit. I have something I want to share with him." Rose Knight said punching the palm of his hand.

"We should stay here and investigate because he was attacked by someone earlier." Everyone looked as Vienna was referring to me. "He also found a gem that is very familiar to my own. It could belong to a very important ally."

"You were attacked? What did this attacker look like? How many were there?" Atalanta asked. It felt like all eyes were on me and I felt a bit nervous.

Pyrona spoke up for me, "He didn't see his face too good because he had a hoody on. He tried to stab him in the back but I don't think we should go looking for him yet. Let's just wait and see if he comes back out. Maybe he was scared and thought Sharcky was trying to steal his gem." She beamed her signature smile at everyone.

"The fact that this boy had a weapon is strange. I have not seen anyone with a weapon while being here." Everyone agreed with Atalanta. "Maybe this strange person will show up at the celebration these villagers are throwing for us. We'll stay here until the event is over, just in case. We leave immediately afterwards and head forward towards the army. Anyone disagree with this?" Silence. "Good."

After everyone situated themselves, Vienna walked up to me and asked me to show her where I had found the gem earlier. I told her I didn't remember but she must not have heard me because she told me to lead the way. What the heck, it couldn't be too hard to figure it out. The issue was that it was starting to get dark and if I didn't find that gem soon I wouldn't be able to find it at all. This place looked like lights were not plentiful. Vienna followed me down the steps and I tried really hard to remember when I turned into the woods and saw that little girl after following Pyrona and Green Ranger for a while. "Vienna, are you going to hug this gem into your body too like you did the other one?"

"That is not possible. I cannot absorb another's gem."

"So it's not yours, but do you know who's it is?"

"No and that is why I want to find it."

We wandered in the forest looking for that gem. Of course, I did not find it this time. I wasn't even sure if I was in the right place as I didn't find the pond that I walked upon earlier. "Sorry, Vienna. I just don't remember where I saw it." She reassured me that everything was alright and that I need not worry about being able to find it.

"We should go. It's starting to get dark and you are not going to be able to see soon." I scoffed at the idea that I'm not going to be able to see but she would.

We were on our way back when we heard some rustling coming from behind us. "Did you hear that?" She looked at me and then to her sides. It was then I noticed something familiar, "That's it! That's the pond I was near earlier when I found the gem! It should be around here somewhere!"

She looked at me as if I was foolish for being excited over finding the pond. "... I am more concerned about whom it belongs to."

As I thought about this I became a little anxious. "Well, it may belong to that girl who may be around here somewhere so we should be careful." Vienna kept creeping up ever so slowly, looking around.

"So there were two attackers."

"No, just one."

"So this one was a male or female?"

"Female. Pyrona might have said boy but it was a girl." I noticed a slight glow coming from about ten feet away. "Look!"

We walked up to the dim light and there it was, the gem I had seen earlier. It wasn't protected this time, or maybe Vienna didn't care as she reached down and grabbed it. She held it in her arms, similar to how she held the other one. "Where are you," she spoke while staring into the crystal as it started to glow a little more. Just then I could hear someone run up behind me, it was the same exact poke I had felt before. Darnit.

"Whoever you are you need to leave NOW!" She shouted at me. Vienna quickly turned around and stared at the guardian of the gem.

"Vienna what are you doing!? Give her the gem!"

She calmly replied, "This isn't hers."

The girl jabbed at my back, "Is someone there with you!?"

"Yeah and I'm trying to get her to give the gem back to you!"

The girl pushed me in my back with her hand, and then pulled back her weapon. She asked with much less aggression, "You're that same chap that was here before, aren't you?"

"Uhh yeah. Listen, I didn't mean to be rude, I didn't think she was going to touch it. She said she wanted to see you because you were the owner of this gem."

"What gem?"

"Huh? That one she's holding." Was she trying to be funny? I turned around to get a look at her.

"I don't own any gems. It must belong to someone else. Just leave me alone and don't come back this time please."

"Did you see anyone around here that this gem may belong to?" Vienna had asked, now showing a little more interest in the girl.

The girl looked up and looked around. "Are you trying to be funny?" How could that question be mistaken for a humorous one? "I already said I don't know anything about any gems."

"Let's go Hero. This child will not help us."

"Oh yeah? Say that to my face smart arse and see that I won't shiv you in your cheek!" She went back into an apparent battle stance.

Because she was focused on Vienna I took this opportunity to jump on her and grab her weapon from her. She struggled and yelled and tried really hard to stab me in my chest but she was panicking quite a bit and probably didn't have much control of herself. I managed to grab her arms with one hand and pulled her weapon from her with the other. I got off of her and just stared at her as she screamed and shivered. She was really frightened and had called out for help several times as I was on top of her. She was a tiny thing and I felt kind of guilty for jumping on her after seeing how scared she actually was. She kicked and clawed at the air. Vienna just stared at both of us and then turned around and started walking away. Suddenly I saw someone fall out of a tree and shout as they struck Vienna in the head with something. She dropped the gem and fell forward.

"Ohh crap." Vienna was down and was not getting up. The attacker crouched over as if they were sick, then turned to me and... floated? Wait, they had wings! "What in the world!?"

The person flew up to me, about a yard away, and at this point I could tell it was a little girl. She held something in front of my face and placed her other hand behind what looked like a flower and it started to glow. The glow intensified, and so did my nerves. Safe to say I probably was going to need to change if I didn't die here. "Waahhh!" She yelled out and was thrown to the side as the energy in her palm jutted out into the skies destroying nothing. A bit of shuffling and struggling and Vienna was thrown off of her. She jumped up and flew into the sky. "You're going to have to get up and run!"

"But you know that I can't-"

"I know, just run NOW!" The girl on the ground got up, turned around and tripped. She got back up and ran away from us.

The one in the air looked down at Vienna and I, "Brace yourselves!" She charged up the flower again aiming down at us.

Vienna tilted her head, "Flora." The girl had tilted her head in response. "Flora, get down here and stop acting crazy."

"Vienna?" The glow from her hand had dissipated and she drifted slowly down to Vienna. I was no longer frozen in place. "Vienna, I did not recognize you with those weird clothes. Is it better to get around now with just a shirt?" She gave it some thought. "What are you doing wandering around all the way out here, I thought you were fighting with the Demon King?"

"I was. It was not an easy task and I only succeeded in saving the princess."

"Wow. He really is that strong then?"

"He has terrifying strength now. We knew it was only a matter of time and yet we waited too long to descend. We must all come together to bring him down now."

"Wooow." The girl exaggerated her head nod as she looked Vienna up and down. "Hey, where is your clothes anyway? And your spell book?"

"I am looking for them."

"And why are you with this guy?"

"He is actually one of the heroes destined to fight with the Demon King."

"Really?" She looked all too surprised by this and gave me an up-and-down. "He doesn't look like a fighter though." She took out a flower from a basket she had hanging on her arm and started sniffing it. "I don't get it, why were we sent here to find " Someone had screamed and the flower girl in front of us jerked her head towards the direction it had come from. "I gotta go! See you some other time Vienna!" She then flew off.

A lot of screaming suddenly could be heard and lightning and thunder plagued the atmosphere. "Let us hurry Hero."

"Right." I was right behind her as we saw flashing lights and heard irregular sounding thunder coming from back in the village. It was dark now so the lights were welcomed for my troubled night vision.

There was a lot of noise, one that only a crowd of excited people would make, that could be heard all around where we were. Now that we were closer I could tell that the thunder I was hearing was not thunder at all but drums. That's right, the celebration. Vienna was too far ahead of me to be able to see her anymore. I stopped running now and just walked at a fast pace as I was out of breath. I had reached the village moments later and noticed that there were a lot of people here dressed up almost the same. The women wore cloths that wrapped around their bodies and draped over their shoulders. Some of the guys I saw earlier were noticeably here because they still had distinct robes on but mostly all other males were shirtless with what looked like mini-skirts, no one had any shoes on. The celebration had already started before my arrival and there were drums, flutes, and singing and dancing all around. A wealthy amount of food was placed on the large table that sat to the side. The crowd of people was unexpected to say the least. Most of the villagers I had not seen today but had no idea were so many in the village. I could see Rose Knight in the crowd, because he definitely stood out and was relatively tall, with a cup in his hand talking to some of the females that were attempting to dance. Pyrona was dancing herself with the other dancers as they moved in a long line. The elder was at the table eating and laughing enjoying the festivity I'm guessing. People were sitting next to him at one table that sat right next to the table with the food. After drinking from a cup, Atalanta joined in the dancing and got in the back of the long line as people cheered for the new addition to their group. Green Ranger had sat down at a table and watched on, not showing any particular interest. I didn't see Vienna. I sat down next to Green Ranger to just relax and enjoy the scenery. "Hey Green Ranger." She looked at me. "When did you guys get here?"

"We just arrived moments before you." She looked aggravated and annoyed. Starting to believe that that was the norm for her.

"Did you see Vienna?"

"She was with you, where did you last see her?"

"She ran ahead of me and I lost her, but she was running this way. She should have had to come by this area." I felt like I had to talk a little louder due to all the surrounding commotion going on.

"I haven't seen her Sharck." She turned her body so that now she faced me. "Did you see the boy who tried to stab you?"

"She is a girl and yes, I did run into her again. This time she had a friend with her, a very strong one too."

"Hmm. So there were two this time. Were they looking for a fight?"

"Not, really? They were being defensive but they weren't trying to kill us I don't think."

"Oh hey there!" It was Valkyrie, dressed completely different than the last time I saw her. She had on what all of the other ladies had on and joined our table. "Nice to see you here." She faced Green Ranger and gave a big smile. "Hello, I'm Valkyrie." Green Ranger gave a smile back, although much smaller, and introduced herself as well. Valkyrie faced me again. "So are you enjoying this celebration?"

"Well, yeah it's definitely different than what I'm used to seeing. So much excitement and joy." The truth was that I wasn't much into parties so I had no idea how to really enjoy one myself.

"So what do you think?" She did a complete twirl.

It took me a few seconds to understand what she wanted me to comment on. "Ah, it looks great on you."

"Thank you. I wasn't going to wear it but I promised Brenda and Frey that I would so here I am." She pulled and pinched at it. She wore a goofy look on her face. "It's a bit tight on me though."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Frey gave it to me and said that she bought it." It didn't look brand new. "I didn't want to disappoint them."

"Well you look nice."

"Thanks." She slowly sat down.

"Did you find your horse?"

She frowned. "I looked everywhere for him and I still couldn't find him."

"Maybe he isn't here in this village."

"I looked outside the village too and still didn't see him. I even called for him and he didn't show up. Usually when I whistle or call his name he would show up in no time."

"Maybe someone captured him." Green Ranger said as though we were idiots for not coming to that conclusion ourselves.

"Huh. I don't think he would get caught so easily. You see..." She put her index finger up to her face like a person who had just come up with an idea would do. "... his name is Pegasus and he can fly."

"What!? He can fly!?" I couldn't believe it.

"Uh huh, that's why I don't think he would get caught just like that. There would need to be a large number of people, like an army, with bows and arrows to shoot him out of the sky."

"Uhhh." I was unsure of why she acted like she had no idea that there was such an army not too far from here in fact.

"Yeah I know, he's so amazing."

"Sounds like the Cayman Army has him." Green Ranger beat me to it.

"The Cayman Army? I've heard that name before from some of the villagers but why would they want to capture him?"

I wanted to explain to her what we all heard about the Cayman Army but someone started speaking loudly.

We all faced the speaker. "Ladies, gentlemen, children of every age, we have special guests with us on this very eventful night!" It was the guy that was with the elder when we first arrived in this village. "What brought them here, I do not know, they may just be passing by from what I gathered. What I do know is that they are here now and we must celebrate their stay, for they are heroes! Yes that's right, heroes! We have been blessed with the arrival of..." He stopped to get a head count of how many and then looked a little confused. "Hmm, I thought there were more for sure but six heroes here today. Yes that's right, SIX heroes! You all know of Madam Valkyrie as she has helped a lot of us with our regular boring activities." People laughed. "However, we do not know of the others. Wouldn't you like to know who these brave and courageous characters are?" The crowd responded positively. "Right then! Heroes? If you don't mind telling us about yourselves or at least your names, we would like to be able to praise you properly." Pyrona and Atalanta looked at each other bewildered. I looked at Green Ranger who still wasn't showing much interest and I still could not tell where Vienna was in this crowd. Rose Knight approached the center and faced the crowd.

"Allow me to be the one that speaks for the rest of us because if all of us spoke we would miss out on the celebration." He walked up on the platform in front of the crowd. "We'd like to say thank you for putting this together for us; it does mean a lot and I can say that we usually don't get so much as a 'thank you' when we do our job. You putting this all together for us is very appreciated and you can rest easy tonight because we will stay here and protect you from any villains who may be lurking and trying to perform a sneak attack." Some in the crowd clapped and cheered. "We know that that appears to be your main threat as of right now and so we intend to get rid of it. Tomorrow we shall go to their base and destroy it." He was very animated at this point and drew more reaction from the crowd. "And then we will come back and get rid of the monster that's in that cave. We do this all for you and have no intention of leaving you to fend for yourselves! Now who's the best warrior in the land?"

"Rose Knight!" A few people in the crowd shouted and then more and more people joined in on the chant. "Rose Knight! Rose Knight! Rose Knight! Rose Knight!" On and on and on and on. He obviously soaked up the praise he was getting. It was over-the-top arrogance.

"Yes, yes!" The man started clapping. "Hahahah! I also have something that will help us defeat the Cayman Army once and for all!" The crowd cheered some more, which drew a pause from him. "The elder brought up a genious plan and we should feel so honored to be protected by such a noble and gracious man." He turned and looked at the elder and bowed. "We have had the opportunity to train warriors ourselves, some of the most elite people we could think of. They have been training for weeks without any breaks every. single. day. They have built strength and can easily destroy those cretins known as the Cayman Army. We have our heroes, and now we have our army." The crowd didn't respond for a bit but then slowly started cheering. Individuals started walking up to the stage. One, two, three, four, ...thirteen, fourteen, ... fifty, fifty-one! Wow, they all wore masks, held weapons in their hands, and were bare-chested. I didn't notice any females in this group. "Welcome the warriors of this village who will help us finally get rid of the nuisance once and for all!" The crowd cheered and then everyone was silent. They all sort of looked around them and stared at the warriors that stood still in front of them.

A very awkward moment until Rose Knight suddenly lifted his fist up. "Now let's celebrate!" The crowd jumped up and down and roared. The drums were being beaten and the flutes and various instruments started sounding again. Atalanta and Pyrona started dancing with each other.

"Wow that was a bit strange. I had no idea you were here to fend off the Cayman Army or that they had some warriors here already," Valkyrie said.

"We are not here to do anything but leave. That idiot just lied in front of everyone." Green Ranger looked annoyed.

"Well, I'm going to go join in on the fun. Maybe I'll see you later tonight. It was nice meeting you Green Ranger." Green Ranger bowed her head.

"Woo-hooo! Come on Greeny and Sharcky!" Pyrona beckoned for us to join her and Atalanta. I could only smile and wave at her as I was not about to get out there and embarass myself.

There was rythmic clapping and even a dance going on around the fire. The fire was in the middle of the entire area sending its smoke into the air probably affecting everyone around it but they were so busy dancing and enjoying themselves they couldn't care less. People were throwing things in it and forming a circle around it as they danced and danced and danced the night away. "Hey Green Ranger." She looked at me. I smiled at her. "You, want to give it a shot?"

"Give what a shot?"

"Dance. Do you want to dance?"

She took a deep breath and said, "No."

"Well, I'm going to go eat then." I was going to ask her if she was hungry but she'd probably just reject me for the sake of rejecting. As I walked past many of the people who were dancing some of the women flirtatiously bumped up against me, some even pulling me off of my course. I just smiled at them and tried to keep moving towards the food, until I was grabbed by a persistent one.

"Hey handsome. You mind if I steal you away for a moment?"

"Hi uhhh haha, what do you mean?" I wasn't going to be rude at least, though I wanted to shove her out of the way. I'll admit she looked very sexy with one side of her face covered by her velvet hair, and she was surely bustier than all of the other women here. She looked odd too with her dark pale skin and her different clothing. She dressed more like the ones wearing the robes. Her narrowed eye was a light orange glow that pierced right into my own. She started rubbing her finger on my chest.

"You are shy aren't you? Maybe I can help with that." She spoke very slowly and started licking her lips, and then insisted leading me by the hand out of the crowd. "Follow me, I have something to show you." I followed her, though I felt I knew what she was trying to do. She had a different aura about her that just demanded my attention for the moment, whether I wanted to go with her or not.

"What's your name?"

"Oh that's not important, I'm just here for you."

"Here for me? Are you getting paid for this then?" She didn't say anything. "If you don't mind me saying there is something different about you that just stands out." We walked into the darkness now. I realized that this may have been a grave mistake on my part because if she was going to do something with me that wasn't dangerous we would not have walked out this far. "Uhh why are we going all the way in the woods?" She just kept walking. I could no longer see her even though she was right in front of me. "Where are we going?" She suddenly stopped, finally letting go of my hand. I heard some noise, like the swooshing sound that comes from swiftly removing a large cover from an object. Some wind brushed against my face. "What are you doing?" Darn, I waited too long and now I was panicking because I felt there was no way I could get away from her before she did what she was going to do.

She kissed me and for a very brief moment I felt a very sharp numbing pain shoot down my back. "You belong to me now. Let's see what happens. Ah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!"

* * *

"AHH!"

"It's okay Hero." Vienna? What the heck.

"What happened?" My head and heart was pounding.

"You are not injured, nor are you intoxicated. You were apparently just having a nightmare though I do not know why you were out here sleeping."

I looked around me. It was still dark and noises were still sounding. Huh. "I must have passed out from being so hungry?"

"I could take you back to the beds so that you could get proper sleep. I'll watch over you while you rest."

"No thank you. I thought I was doing something." ...What was I last doing?

"Have you celebrated yet?"

"Celebrated? Oh right. I remember I was going to get some food and then some woman stopped me and... and then..." I couldn't remember. We went to the village circle where the party was still in action.

"Sharcky!" Pyrona ran up to me and checked me out. She waved her finger at me. "Were you doing naughty things Sharcky?" I questioned her. "Well, Atty said that she saw you walk off with some naughty looking woman."

"I don't remember what happened. I do remember talking to some woman though."

"You should eat. Maybe you are just starving and started hallucinating," Vienna suggested. I didn't think I was honestly THAT hungry.

I walked up to the table where the elder and several other gentlemen sat. "Uhh, excuse me, can I grab some food from here," I asked as I pointed to the table with scraps left.

"Sure man take whatever you want. You all need plenty of food and strength for tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?" They all looked at each other and started laughing and swatting at each other, even one of the guys gave me a punch to the arm.

"What's tomorrow. You know what tomorrow is." I didn't. All I knew is that we were leaving.

"Yeah, just like we don't know that farts stink." They all laughed again.

"Yeah, or, or that we don't know that women have breasts." They all kept laughing.

"Or that we don't know that your breath smells like the shite that comes out of my ass!" They all started banging on the table with their hands. Some of them knocking bones off of their plates.

The elder, who wasn't taking part in the humorous plight, cleared his throat. They all immediately stopped laughing and sat up with their backs straight. He held up a plate of food, "Here, you can have this plate of food. It already has everything on it."

"Thanks." I took the plate from him.

"Come back if you want more, there is plenty." I thanked him again and then returned to the table where Green Ranger was. Pyrona was sitting there with her and an empty plate sat between them both.

"Oooh Sharcky you brought us some more food!"

"No actually I- ugh nevermind." She had already started eating off of my plate.

"Hmm hmm!"

"You can have some Green Ranger if you want. I really don't mind." I didn't now anyways.

"Awww, that's so nice of you Sharcky." It was nice of me but she refused.

"Where were you," she instead asked.

"I guess I was with a wo-" Pyrona had coughed. "You okay?"

"He was going into the woods to go tinkle."

"Why did I need to know this?" Green Ranger looked a bit dismayed.

"You asked Greeny."

After we sat there for a while looking at everyone have fun and the energy dying down I asked if they knew what was happening tomorrow that would require us to need food and rest. Pyrona had said that we needed food and rest every day and that she didn't know what I was talking about, and Green Ranger said that Rose Knight was talking nonsense and just spitting out lies.

* * *

After the celebration and everyone slowly dispersed from the gathering, we all decided to go back to where Atalanta rested earlier today. Now that it was dark, it was easy to notice that there was a light in one of the houses across the bridge from where we were. Pyrona lit a lantern. "Are we all supposed to stay in here?" Atalanta questioned the idea of the small amount of space that was surely too small to comfortably accommodate all of us.

"There's a few other houses up here, maybe we can stay in those," Pyrona said.

"Well, I was planning on leaving now but since Vienna is still gone, I say we stay until she arrives."

"Wait what!? I just saw her!" I know I wasn't going crazy.

"Calm down Sharck, I'm sure she had something to do. Why don't we just rest here for the night and then leave early in the morning? She should be back by then." Rose Knight didn't really get much of a response from anyone aside from a few sighs and a couple nods.

"I'll stay up and wait for Vienna," Green Ranger volunteered.

"Ok then. Unless you guys want to sleep on the floor you can leave. Pyrona can stay with me and Green Ranger, once Vienna gets here you can stay with her. I'm actually still tired so I am going to get some slumber." Atalanta looked at Rose Knight and me, "Rose Knight, you and him can go find another roof to stay under. Is that clear?"

"My plan was to do that anyway, not because you said it. You think we want to stay in here with you women," Rose Knight antagonized.

"Then good night."

"Good night Rosie and Sharcky. If you get scared of the scary darkness just call for me and I'll be over there really fast to scare any demons or bugs away. And then I'll wrap you up in a blanket and sing to you until you fall asleep." Rose Knight huffed and then walked out. I followed him out after saying goodnight to the women.

We started walking to the left and I opposed that direction. "Rose Knight why don't we go to the one that already has the light on."

"That one probably has someone already in it, that's why the light is there."

"Yeah, but I don't see anybody in it." I could tell he had enough for the day because every time I spoke he would hesitate to answer or will so with heavy sarcasm.

"Right, I forgot that you can see through walls."

"There's a window."

"Fine. Go. I wanted to sleep by myself anyways." He looked at me as he said this and then continued walking towards the house we were headed towards. I didn't care but I didn't want him to be alone so I told him I'd be right back, even though I had no intention on coming back if the other one was vacant. I had to walk past the house where the women were and ended up walking into Green Ranger.

"Did that idiot hurt your feelings?" Green Ranger said with a smirk on her face.

"No, I wanted to check out this house over here." I pointed to the one across from us.

"Why? It has a light so someone is probably in it."

"I know but maybe it's Valkyrie. I at least want to see if it is or not so I can speak to her and wish her a good night."

"That's a bit of trouble for one person." She narrowed her eyes at me. "You and Valkyrie seem to know each other well. Is that who you were in the woods with fooling around?"

"What!? No!"

"It doesn't take that long to 'tinkle' Sharck. You both disappeared at around the same time too."

"I didn't do anything. Even if I did, that would be none of YOUR business."

"Fair enough. And what if she isn't there?"

"Then you'll see me again." I smiled and then walked towards the house across the bridge, leaving the elf's head tilted in confusion. I heard some noise as I approached the house, however, I looked in and saw no one. Since there was no door I knocked on the entryway frame. Nobody answered. I walked in slowly and noticed that there were some bloody bandages lying on the floor and there was a dirty soaked hoody on the floor right next to the bandages. I started kicking myself mentally for still entering this place after realizing that someone was already in here. They must have stepped out though and would probably beat me up if they saw me trespassing like this. I saw nothing that resembled anything with Valkyrie so I started on my way out. Well, I also started hearing something again. I was startled and became worried that I was about to get caught, so I hid under one of the beds.

"Where did she go? Rurn?" Someone was talking to themselves.

I then noticed as I turned to my side that someone else was hiding under the other bed across from me. She was half clothed and was covering her head as if she was frightened. "Flora he's under the bed!" She screamed out in a shrilling panic.

A head instantly descended from above the bed and I was officially spotted. I was allowed to come from under the bed on my own. Surprisingly, this Flora girl did not seem mad at all. She had wings coming from behind her? Her hair was not too long and only came down to her upper back. It was light bluish-green in color and did up in a curly twin pigtail fashion. Her eyes were green and she had little freckles on her cheeks. Though her face made her look like she was ten, her clothing was very, uhh, revealing. She tilted her head. "What are you doing here?" Oh that's right. This was the same one that attacked us in the forest.

"Uhh, well I thought that this was someone else's place. I just wanted to make sure that it... wasn't?"

She stared me down for a moment and then looked over her shoulder and said, "Hey Vienna, your human is being weird." Vienna then entered the place seconds later. Vienna looked at me as though she felt shame for me. "I guess it doesn't matter because now we can discuss some things with both of you. Rurn come out."

* * *

 **A/N: Yes, right before New Years! Was excited to finally sit down and get this one out. Trying to bring in a new main oc which may be difficult because of their background. Excited to see where this one goes.**

 **Next chapter should be out within several days, not weeks. They say that splitting up covers more ground.**

 **Thank you so much for reading!**

 **Also, should I be putting a disclaimer in every chapter? I mean by now everyone reading should know that most of the main characters in this story are not owned by me. I'll keep it just in case I guess, but with more characters coming and going, being specific would require a paragraph at the beginning of each chapter.**

 **I made a couple of edits in dialogue for this chapter.**


	10. Split Into The Cayman Army

**Disclaimer:** **I do not own a majority of the characters or settings in this chapter. They belong to GTArcade & Youzu Interactive Co. Ltd.**

* * *

 **Chapter 10 - Split Into The Cayman Army**

Flora paced back and forth, although Vienna was the one to speak. "We have an issue that is bigger than any of us, and it is only going to get worse. The Demon King has gained quite a bit of power since descending and with being the first one down he has been able to adapt to this land and build up strength at a much faster rate than anyone else. Although we have descended, we are still far behind his power and have no way to catch up to his progress unless we can neutralize him soon. This will be our only way to gain time on him, and thus, power." She pointed at Flora and herself. "We have an important meeting to attend really soon and are not going to be able to watch over you during this period. We want you to look after each other. Hero, do you understand what this means?"

"Sure, I don't see why I wouldn't. Wait, I do, she tried to fight me."

"You tried to take advantage of me," Rurn had spat out.

"I think we should discuss this with the others Vienna, they are more likely able to look after her better than I ever will."

"That is fine Hero. I will tell them when they are awake."

"I'm not going anywhere. Where's Valkyrie," Rurn asked.

Flora responded, "It's okay Rurn, I talked to my sister here and she said that you will be better off traveling with this guy and the others. You can trust them."

"I thought I could trust you, but I guess I can't anymore. Where's Valkyrie, I'm sure she won't try and send me orf with some random bloke."

"I saw her at the party, but I don't know where she went afterwards." I said this more to myself as I remember talking with her.

"Yes, then you went to sleep in the woods where I found you," Vienna said.

"I already told you Flora, I just want to go home and get back to my normal life..." Rurn started whimpering. "And I am not going anywhere until I can see again."

"You'll be fine, watch..." Flora walked Rurn over to me and made an attempt to grab my arm.

"What are you doing!?" I backed away and snatched my arm out of reach before she could grab it.

"Relax." Flora placed Rurn's hand on my arm as I hesitantly presented it. The girl gasped. "See, nothing to worry about. You two are very important and need to remain out of harm's way for us, got it?"

What I felt when she touched my arm was something I wouldn't be able to explain easily, though if I had to use one word I'd say, "sensible." This is pretty much what I felt and it wasn't a good or bad thing, it was neutral really, but yet allowed me to become aware of its existence. It was as if it provided its own thoughts and emotion. Who was I dealing with?

"Hero." Vienna grabbed my attention. "Will you accept Rurn as your lifelong partner and always protect her from a sudden and, or otherwise, deadly fate?"

"Uhhhh, why are you trying to marry me off to her!? That's immoral!" Rurn surprisingly didn't oppose the idea, though she didn't agree either.

"Marry you off?" Vienna must have been joking with me and playing dumb.

Flora's image flashed in front of me and within the next second I landed roughly on my side. She looked infuriated, "You dumb idiot, she is not marrying you to Rurn, she's giving you a chance to make a pact with the regards of angels, something you should be grateful for! Stop being a dumb man and show some respect you mortal!" After she calmed down a bit she said to Vienna, "You have to say that in a different way, you know that humans freak out when you say it like that because they already have a ritual that's similar to this, and it usually means mating afterwards." I was confused and a bit scared.

Vienna softly spoke, "You and Rurn seem to be from another world, maybe even from the same one and until we can be sure what you were summoned for, you must keep each other alive. If our sister was correct then the Demon King may be looking for you." The Demon King may be looking for me? I questioned her, not that I thought she had a reason to lie, but my subconscious told me that I was destined to be some great hero so why should this be believable at all. "We have not confirmed this but you two may not be the only ones that were summoned." I still didn't understand the pact.

"Just try and listen and understand why you two should stay together and keep each other protected."

Rurn slowly stood up and started walking towards the doorway. She held her arms out like a person walking around in the dark trying not to walk into anything. She eventually ceased the attempt and slouched as she knelt down, like someone who had just come to the realization that they would never succeed at anything. "I'm never going to be able to see again am I?" Flora and Vienna stared at the girl. "I WANT TO SEE AGAIN! GIVE ME MY EYES BACK!" She banged into the floor with her hand while they just stared at her as she started crying.

Vienna walked up to the girl. "You cannot tell if I am next to you can you?"

"No because I can't flippin see!"

"You cannot sense Flora either can you?"

"Why is everyone trying to make jokes at me!?"

"We're not Rurn," Flora said.

"We really have to leave for a little while and should be back within a few days. I can assure you that this hero beside you will do his best to protect you." Vienna volunteered me.

"Wait. Who said that I would protect her, I don't know her. Don't just volunteer me for something like this." I felt bad for Rurn but I was the least capable of keeping her alive and was not fond of feeling guilty for not being able to protect her from this world that I still knew almost nothing about.

Flora walked up to Rurn and lifted her up. "Stand up girl, you have to be strong." She wiped tears off of Rurn's cheeks. "Now, you don't have to trust him but at least trust us when we say that you need to go with them." She walked her over to the bed and allowed her to sit on it. "Here, rest. Cry all you want tonight, but tomorrow, you must wake up stronger than ever. Forget about your inability to see and focus on what you still have." Rurn looked like she was about to start crying again.

I couldn't take it anymore. "Okay." Flora shot me with daggers from her eyes, however, I ignored them. "I'll try my best. I'm not comfortable seeing someone suffer like this and I honestly don't think I am capable of being able to do it, but you asked me and I will do my best."

Vienna smiled. "Thank you Hero."

I walked out of the wooden house and now that I had time to think about it, I shouldn't have acted that way. That poor girl couldn't see and it sounded like someone had taken her eyes away from her. The upper part of her face that I could see, she had bandages covering half of her head, was as close to purple I could assume one person could get. I wasn't trying to be selfish, I just didn't want that responsibility thrown at me... Anyways, I needed to go back to the other house where Rose Knight was. I didn't see Green Ranger as I walked past where Atalanta and Pyrona slept for the night. I made it back to where Rose Knight was sound asleep and I lay in bed trying to figure out what had just happened. Was this normal to be given such a task without much experience in a world you don't know much about? I guess another thing is that I need to get used to these abnormalities here. I wonder what the others will think when they meet her. Well, I guess I'll find out tomorrow...

* * *

"Hey Sharck get up."

"Ugh." Rose Knight had woken me up by shaking me a little and was fully clothed for combat with his usual armor on. He had a face of urgency this morning.

"What's up Rose Knight?" I yawned. "Why are you holding your weapon?"

"Shhh. Listen." I could hear some drums being played.

This fool still wanted to party? "Yeah, that's great. I'm not going though, I'll be fine." I tried to go back to sleep. Something was thrown at me moments later and it landed right on my head. "What was that for!?" Green Ranger was standing in the doorway, she too was ready for battle. "What's going on?"

"We have to go Sharck."

I was still sleepy, but something was up and I needed to get ready quickly.

"Let's go!" Green Ranger ran away from the doorway, Pyrona and Rose Knight following right after.

I still heard drums sounding in the background. The atmosphere, even just looking out the doorway felt unsettling. What in the world is going on? I needed to hurry up and get ready. I grabbed the bag that Green Ranger threw at me and ran out. Below me was just chaotic, the villagers were in a state of panic and screamed and ran around, most running into the woods towards where we came from when we first entered the village. I was still unsure of what was actually happening so maybe that's why I couldn't tell why everyone was in such a rush to leave. I could see the elder directing traffic and trying to get everyone evacuated and far away from this place. I saw the gang down in front of him also helping with getting people away. There weren't that many to evacuate though. To not waste any more time, I descended down from the tree and met with the gang. It was a different feeling when I was actually up close with the action and noticed the sheer fright on the villagers' persons. Very few said they would stay and fight for their home even if it cause them their last breath.

"I am very thankful that you all decided to help us. We owe you our lives." Pring spoke. He looked sick as he continued trying to get everyone out.

"Just get everyone out and make sure you forget no one, we'll take care of the enemies." Atalanta lifted her sword from where it stood dug into the ground. She looked at all of us. "Let's go." The drums sounded clearer.

"Where are the warriors!?" Last night's announcer panicked.

"Do not worry Kaleb, we must leave now! Let the heroes do their job!"

"But we already paid them, they should be here protecting us as well!"

"It doesn't matter now! Now let us be on our way!" The two villagers left.

"We'll stay here and help fight!" A few villagers stubbornly stayed behind even though Pring pleaded against it.

"You all should leave before it's too late." Atalanta tried to reason with them but they wouldn't consider leaving their "life" behind just because of the sound of drums. "At least stay back and let us handle the enemies please." They agreed to that much and said they would only fight if the enemies began attacking the village. "Thank you all."

"We should meet them before they make it here," Green Ranger said. Atalanta agreed and so we all started running towards the exit on the other side of the village. We ran into the woods and approached fog.

"Tch, not this again." Rose Knight stutter stepped into the fog.

"Let's go!" Atalanta ran in followed by the others.

... It was at this moment I realized that I had forgotten about everything from last night. "Ah shoot, I have to go and see if Rurn was left behind!" I cursed at myself for being such an idiot and forgetting. I ran back, the village barren of life. There were items sprawled out all around and nothing could be heard except the drums and my lightened steps into the ground as I placed less f my weight into each stride to get a faster pace. I rushed up the tree and ran across the bridge to get to where I last saw Rurn, I even managed to stumble as the bridge shook at the force I was sprinting across it with. "Hey Rurn, get up we gotta go! RURN!" I didn't see her. Where in the world did she go? I checked under both beds and still did not see her. I goofed up!? No, I had to find her! I ran out back across the bridge and back down the tree. "RUUUURRN!" I yelled through my cuffed hands but no matter what I didn't find her anywhere. I had to leave. This place wasn't on fire or anything but I just felt like the longer I was here, the less time I had before I would be killed. With much panic I ran to the elder's house. "RURN!" No reply. "Darnit!" I could only now hope that Flora and Vienna took her with them.

* * *

 **3rd person POV**

* * *

The group made it through the fog with no issue at all. The sound of the drums ceased immediately and they were left puzzled. They were now on a flat plain of tall grass, the ground soft and dry. The heroes stood and looked around, trying to pinpoint where exactly the previous sound was coming from and why it had suddenly stopped. Even the one with a more adequate set of ears for long distance hearing could not hear the drums anymore. They could see a large structure in the barely visible distance. No one knew why the drums had stopped but they knew that they needed to keep moving either way if they wanted to make it back to their princess. "We need to keep moving forward," the blonde female warrior said.

"Yeah, let's figure out what those guys are up to," her blonde counterpart replied. Everyone had found it unbelieveable and tough to calm their nerves after assuming they were going to have to take part in a rigorous battle.

"We have to wait first," the concerned magician said. She had been the first to realize that they were one member short.

"For what," Atalanta asked.

"Sharcky hasn't made it to us yet."

"Where is he?"

"He probably got lost in the fog. He'll be out in a bit." The knight assumed Sharck really just didn't pay attention and was clueless.

"Then we'll just wait here until he comes." But waiting was easier said than done. The minutes crept up ever so slowly and before they knew it, they started feeling like they were wasting time moreso than waiting for someone. "How lost could he be? He was right behind us when we walked into the fog."

"He was scared, let's just wait some more."

"He is not coming," the archer said while pulling her hair back and fixing it into a more suitable area for the amount of space in her hood.

"How can you be sure?"

"I just know. We are wasting time, let us go."

"So you don't hear anything?" Atalanta was curious to how accurate Green Ranger's assumptions were. "I say we wait a few more minutes, surely he didn't abandon us. We all know that fog can be tricky when trying to navigate through it."

"... He's not coming. It was only a matter of time anyway."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Sharcky wouldn't leave us." The magician refused to believe such a thing.

"You can stay here and watch the fog, but I am going to continue doing what I came here to do." The archer pulled her hood back over her head and continued through the plains.

The two blondes exchanged glances and then stood up and waited a little longer until they decided enough was enough and that they actually were wasting their time and that the archer was correct. The mage was the only one to stay back a little while longer. She felt strange and decided to wait for more than just the fact that Sharcky was on his way. Her mind drifted more than she would normally allow and she was starting to think that she was only confused about feelings towards him. He traveled through her mind quite often now and she couldn't figure out why. It wasn't the kind of feeling that a woman has for a man when she is simply attracted to him and wants a relationship, that much she was sure of, but still she could not pinpoint the reason. Maybe it was a wish, a deep desire to have a certain wish come true that he was capable of granting, in a figurative sense. She decided that it would be best to move on anyhow, but left a note for her partner whenever he did finally decide to follow them. Pyrona knew that he was coming eventually, so she wasn't saddened. It's really the only reason she did not go back in the fog to look for him, she wanted him to pull together the courage on his own; and if he didn't, she would still believe in him and not feel betrayed by his abandonment. She started walking, not really caring if she caught up with the others or not.

* * *

"Hey, so what's the plan when we get to this place," Rose Knight asked.

"We have to push through. The quicker we get to the princess the better," Atalanta stated. "I am not thrilled about being away from her for so long." She inwardly hit herself. "I knew we should have just left yesterday."

"You were tired and needed to rest," Green Ranger replied.

"Sure, but now we must push through quickly so that we waste minimum amount of time. I am really starting to feel strange. Something in the atmosphere is changing and I don't think it's because we are treading on unknown grounds. Maybe Sharck did have the right idea."

"Running away is not honorable."

"I mean if we just retraced our steps by going through the cave again."

"Haha, you were the one that was against that idea. Don't tell me you're getting shaky on me because of the size of that castle." The knight pointed at the large structure that was getting closer by each step. It could indeed now be identified as a large castle.

"Of course not. I just don't see us getting through THAT quickly is all. Where is Pyrona anyway," the sword-wielding female inquired as they moved slowly, purposefully giving the magician time to catch up.

"Leave her, she is probably going to wait for him forever." The archer said this with much annoyance.

"Green Ranger, is that jealousy?" The archer shook her head immediately. "Well, I think it is cute that you are jealous of Sharck." The blonde woman teased.

"Why would I be jealous of him?"

"Because he is getting Pyrona's attention."

"I do not care about that, I just want her to stop trusting people she does not know so easily."

"It is true that we do not know him well but it is not like we really need to anyway. He has not tried anything, and does not seem like he is. Besides, it is not a bad thing for one of us to get on his good side. With someone he can trust and rely on, we can figure out who he really is from that one person. If he truly is evil then he will make a mistake eventually that will show his true self. Until then, relax and trust Pyrona to take care of herself."

"And who is this one person supposed to be that is going to get on his good side?"

"Pyrona of course. See, already working. We can just relax and wait for her to build a bond with him and then she will tell us if we need to be worried about him or not. My guess is not, so stop worrying." The green archer didn't take it so lightly but agreed to drop the issue for now.

"Haha, you women are cruel. Just leave him alone. Besides, if he tries anything we can definitely handle him," Rose Knight said.

"Hahaha! Well, anyone who says that they are from some land far far away without being specific does not deserve to be fully trusted."

"Does this mean that we are not waiting for Pyrona then?"

"You heard what Green Ranger said, and she is probably right. So let us go ahead, and she should catch up soon." The trio continued on hoping they would eventually run into some action because they were starting to get bored. Even still, getting to the princess was the biggest concern on everyone's mind. At times it felt as though each step took them one step further away than closer. They inwardly started doubting their progress and it started to show in their countenance.

* * *

 **Sharck's POV**

* * *

I might as well continue on since I have yet to find Rurn. I sat for longer than I wanted to at Pring's just wondering why I made that promise; I knew I shouldn't have even though I felt bad. Now I feel even worse. I just hope that maybe the conversation last night was a dream and that I didn't really make that promise, because I already failed if that's the case... The others were way ahead of me by now and may have had to fight without me, not that I think they needed my help, or that I could actually help. I walked over to where the fog was again and went in without much hesitation. The fog; I remember stepping into it for the first time when I first arrived here in this world and it's brought nothing but uncertainties ever since. What I really wanted to know was where was it coming from because surely it wasn't as random as it seemed. It didn't take long at all and I was on the other side of the fog within one minute. The surface changed and it was now just tall brownish-green colored grass that covered as far as I could see. There were no more trees in the near vicinity and the wind was very calm, which brought about an eery chill to me. It was also quiet, which meant that the battle must have already happened. Hehe, that just means I disappointed two groups already this morning. There was a very large structure in the distance that resembled the castle, or maybe that was the same one where the princess was and I was really close now. I needed to catch up to the others for sure now so that we all could make it back at the same time. The only thing I worried about was getting ambushed by the Cayman Army if somehow the others managed to miss a few stragglers.

I was walking for about ten minutes when I came across some patches of disturbed red-colored grass. I saw a bunch of bodies lying on the ground in the middle of the field, most of them wore masks and had weapons next to them, with red designs visible on each body. "What's going on?" One must of heard me because he moved ever-so-slightly. I stood next to him and I could see that he was actually bleeding from his mouth, quite a bit too. A little queasy at the thought of kneeling in someone's blood, I said to him, "Are you okay?" The man coughed up blood and looked at me. "What happened?" The man raised his hand up as if to block out the sun from his face. "Did the Cayman Army do this?" I started worrying. Where were the others?

"No..." The man coughed again. "Just an excuse."

"An excuse?"

"Money. We used them so that they would... pay. We acted as... warriors so they would hire us..." He coughed between sentences and struggled to shift his body towards me so that he could grab my leg. I eventually knelt down next to him so that he could speak without so much effort. "They never had any intention on fighting. We just took the moment to use them as a threat."

"Why did I hear drums?" The man slowly shook his head. "I don't understand."

"There were no real threats behind those drums... Fake warning signal... Never heard them use drums."

"Well what did this? What could have caused all of you guys to be brutally beaten so badly?"

He slowly closed his eyes and just as slowly opened them back up. He didn't look at me anymore, but stared in the distance. "Some woman... looking for a pink princess... kill us if we didn't tell her. She... a bloody cloak with feathers... Horned animal's skull, nothing like I've seen before... She was clearly bluffing so we wanted to have a little fun is all... She yelled and suddenly... we heard a loud whistle, like some wild creature. Then a monster... wings with eyes... started slaughtering us all with her big death weapon. I tried to... point them towards the Cayman Army... just to stop them from killing... us..." He started coughing a lot more and probably could no longer talk. Blood started leaking out of his eyes and ears. What in the world did this!? Horned animal's skull, bloody cloak, wings with eyes!?

"I'm sorry but, I really don't understand what you're trying to say. I really wish I could help you. If you hang on, Vienna will be here to heal you... Just don't die please." He spoke a few words incoherently, his eyes closed. He gave a deep breath. "Sir?... Sir? Oh you're going to sleep, okay, I'll let you sleep then. I'll wake you up when I get back okay, just don't die." ... Oh gosh please tell me this didn't just happen. Who was I kidding. I looked around me and noticed that there was no other life to speak with, everyone else was already gone. I apologized to the lifeless body in front of me and ran for it. I ran blindly forward, accidentally stepping on arms and legs but just the thought of getting away from this massacre was more than worth respecting the dead. There was so much blood, I could barely keep still. I started feeling very uneasy and tried to think happy thoughts, anything that would take my mind off of what I just witnessed. If this wasn't the Cayman Army that did this, then who? Who would do something like this to innocent people? More importantly, the others were in real trouble now and I HAD to catch up to them!

* * *

 **3rd person POV**

* * *

"We never did fight anyone." The knight lightly complained.

"I am not complaining," Atalanta responded.

"I am, I'm so bored right now I could fight an angel."

"Speaking of angels, where did Vienna go? Did she ever show up last night Green Ranger?"

"No, I never saw her. I became tired and decided to rest up last night. I did not stay out looking for her," the archer replied.

"Hmm, so we lost Sharck AND Vienna. 'And then there were three,'" the knight ended in laughter.

"Right, Pyrona is missing too," the blonde woman said.

"Well we know where she is, we just don't know where the other two are."

"I don't think it really matters right now, we just have to make sure we don't go too far without her catching up. We didn't come across any threats; anyone following us should be okay." The three continued on leaving a trail of indents in the curved grass. They were now close to the large castle-like structure, it was nothing fancy and lacked energy and flair. To the right was the Bahlric River and a mountain in the distance, and to the left, also in the distance, was nothing but water. The only way to progress it seemed was to either swim, or go through the castle. Two female archers stood at the castle gates.

"Halt!" They put one of their hands up to signal to the heroes to stop in their tracks. They had identical tattoos on both of their arms. One of the women spoke loudly, "State your name!"

Atalanta, although not feeling too kindly of the woman's tone, decided to introduce the team. There was no sense in starting trouble with guards. "I am Atalanta, and this is Rose Knight, and this is Green Ranger." She signaled to each of them as she said their names.

"Those names are not familar! What business do you have here?"

"We are simply wanting to pass through is all. We mean no harm and do not wish to disturb anyone."

"Then you should have no problem going around," the other guard woman spoke.

Atalanta scratched her head at this blunt remark, mentally massaging her thoughts so that she doesn't take their rudeness personally. She understood their behavior towards strangers and chose to let it go. Green Ranger asked a question of her own, "Is this the Cayman Army grounds?"

The two guards looked at each other and then the one with a lower tone spoke, "Leave now or we will be forced to kill you, we do not care if you are warriors. This is your only warning."

Rose Knight shook his head. "We have me and you have two of you, you have no chance of winning. Just let us pass and then maybe we can forget the threat, go eat some bread together, and maybe get to know each other a little better. You two seem like really nice hardworking ladies." The guards stared at each other again, almost stunned by the knight's brashness. Taking this opportunity of their attention being on the knight, the opposing archer drew out her bow and arrow and shot one of the guards. Before the other could react fast enough, another arrow perfectly carved its way through the air with one destination in mind, the chest of an archer who was a couple seconds too slow. Without so much of a peep, the two women were lying face-first, on their way to a better or worse life. The knight turned to his fun-stealing partner, "Green I could have handled that."

"You would have only talked them to death," the archer replied.

"Angels! Do not kill unless you have to Green Ranger! We cannot afford to get into a predicament when we don't know what we're up against. Besides, we just don't have the time."

"We have more time than we would have if we just stood back and listened to him talk."

Atalanta took a deep breath as she tried to assess their current situation. "We need to at least find Pyrona before we go any further." She hung her head down realizing that no matter what, they were going to use up a lot of time this day as well before making it back to Ivalice. Saying moreso to herself than the others, "What are we going to do now?"

"We sneak in."

"How?"

"By disguising ourselves."

"How?" The warrior tilted her head putting a little more emphasis on the question.

"We strip them, put their clothes on, and then knock on the door so they can let us in."

"That will not work. We look nothing like them."

"Hah! We have a better chance of getting in there buck naked and not being caught," the knight joked. "Let's just bang on the door and fight our way through."

"Our goal is to get in there without disturbing anyone."

"Those two are already disturbed." He pointed towards the two lifeless bodies.

"Then let us not kill anymore if we do not have to." She continued conversing with Green Ranger. "The problem is that there are only two of them out here. How do we sneak Rose Knight in?"

"He doesn't need to dress up or disguise himself. Once they see him they will automatically assume he is just some dumb idiot that was captured by us."

"You sure did put a lot of emphasis on the words 'dumb' and 'idiot'," the knight interposed.

"We can try it, and if it doesn't work, then we shall just have to fight our way through." Atalanta walked over towards the bodies and noticed two important details, the blood on the clothes, and the tattoos on the arms. "This may be harder than you think."

"Maybe the 'dumb idiot' fought with both of you and did some damage."

"No, this won't work. We may just have to walk around." This was something she definitely did not want to do because of how much time it would take to go around. She held on to hope and just made sure not to become oblivious to the most important task on their agenda.

"I do not understand why going around is such an issue. We will take just as long going through as we would going around most likely. You do not honestly believe that they are just going to let us walk through untouched do you," Green Ranger asked.

"There is no way to go pass the water without swimming, I'd like not to have to swim with this body armor on."

"But you train regularly on how to swim with all of your battle gear on just for a situation like this."

"There's no way we are going to make it through all of that moving water, armor or not. We have much less of a chance because of our gear."

The archer sighed and shook her head, "There is no other option."

"You're right..."

Before they could start walking away, the gates began to open. The three became fully alerted and started preparing themselves.

A group was standing right on the other side of the gate, as if waiting to welcome the heroes from a long journey from home. The one in the front sitting on a horse turned and looked at a female standing next to him, who only shrugged knowing he wanted to know who the small group of three was. "What is this?" The group was taken off guard for a moment, not knowing that the enemies would be waiting right on the other side of the entrance. No one was concious enough of the situation to answer the question. "I guess I'll have to ask again, who are you?" He approached the heroes only to get a full view of what had happened just right outside the castle walls. He looked at the bodies and lowered his gaze, "They were just recruited. Such a shame."

Atalanta was the first to recover from seeing the sheer number of individuals standing in front of them. It was nothing short of fifty men, fully covered in armor with corn-colored outlinings. Covered from head to toe just like the rest, the man on the horse stood out for one reason aside from the fact that he was the only one on a horse, and that was his hair. His hair was a deep blue. From what she could tell, they all held a sword in their hands and looked more than capable of posing a threat if taken too lightly. She played it smart for now and acted cautious, simply because starting trouble now could only end horribly. She hoped the others would follow suit and that the deaths of two of these soldiers' comrades wouldn't be enough to condemn them. "We were just wanting to pass through, without disturbing anyone."

The blue haired horseman found this hard to believe with the evidence in front of him that proved otherwise. "You came to pick a fight with us?"

"No."

"Seeing you with those weapons in your hands tells me otherwise. I never liked having to bury my fallen comrades." Atalanta prepped herself for a very tough fight. The others around her were just starting to come to and realized what was actually happening and what could just from the number of threats that now glared them down. "If you wish to fight us then bring it now, we have no time to waste."

"What do you want?"

The man looked around him and noticed something amiss. "I don't believe you should be asking any questions right now. You just answer mines. Tell me why I shouldn't have you killed?"

"Because you can't do it! You can go ahead and try it mister, but you can't beat us and you know it, that's why you need so many bad guys on your team!" The group turned to notice their magician was behind them with her staff aiming at the man on the horse, ready to take on anyone who dared disrespect her group of friends. She gave them a signature smile and winked.

She caught the attention of the one standing next to the man on the horse. "Oooh she has spark. I like that." The man raised his hand. "Okay okay, I won't do anything."

"Now, that will not go unpunished next time. For the last time, and you may want to answer correctly, who. are. you?"

Rose Knight prepared himself by stretching his neck a little and pulling out a rose from underneath his armor. "Listen, we'd love to stand here and act like we like you but we don't, and you are really starting to piss me off asking the same damn question. I don't care how many guys you have on your team, I'll take them all out. The lady tried to be polite, but that's not what you want so I say let's cut to the chase and start fighting." He grinned as he stared the horseman right in the face showing no sign of having any discomfort in the current situation.

"Anyone want to fight him?" The man asked his men as he stared back at the knight. The crowd of multiple men gave a roaring cheer and started marching forward. "Hahahah, one at a time, one at a time." All but one stopped progressing.

"This is going to take forever, come on. At least give me five at a time." Atalanta walked up behind Rose Knight and told him in a whisper to not to do anything stupid. She simply meant not to get hurt or kill anyone. The brave volunteer stood in front of the capable knight and mentally measured him. After being satisfied with his estimations, he gained confidence and lunged at the knight, missing by inches. He swung his sword again and instead of dodging, Rose Knight blocked with his weapon. The knight easily overpowered the soldier and pushed him to the ground while the others looked on, some ready to jump in and help their embarrassed fellow soldier, others were not yet impressed. "Look, I would love to sit here and do this all day but I really have more important things to do." The knight held his bare hand out to help the soldier up but he refused and even made an attempt to cut the knight's wrist, luckily the knight was very quick and pulled back just in time. The other soldiers could not hold back anymore and started rushing the knight. For the moment they only saw Rose Knight which allowed the others to start an attack of their own. Atalanta gripped her sword and quickly, along with the mage, rushed towards Rose Knight's side and waited for the intense battle that was about to commence. Green Ranger stood back and readied another arrow, still surprised and glad to see the magician to return to them at such a perfect time. The knight looked at his two partners beside him, nodded, and placed a rose gently between his teeth, giving them the subtle hint that he was no longer going to hold back.

Some of the soldiers, before reaching the three standing side-by-side, were taken out by multiple arrows that pierced right through their armor. The horseman was astonished for a brief moment. Rose Knight, Pyrona, and Atalanta easily fought off the few that reached them at first. Pyrona forming a path of fallen bodies in front of her with her magic boulder hurling staff, Rose Knight just formed a defense for her, and Atalanta attacked, and with much swift, soldiers one at a time. Soldiers started losing track of who they were attacking and became confused, sometimes pushing each other out of the way to figure out where their targets were. Meanwhile, in the center of all the commotion, the three heroes were still handling their own, tens of soldiers down, and even tens more to go. Although Green Ranger could not shoot any in front of her partners, she controlled the sides and helped maintain a safe number of individuals that could get to the three at once. The horseman stood wide-eyed for a moment and had a hard time believeing that this group of only FOUR was holding their own against his men.

He decided to halt this abomination and take matters into his own hands. "HAAAALT!" The progression of the soldiers ceased. Of no surprise the heroes were more than thankful for the break from endless onslaughts. Even the archer's arms grew tired. They were fighting nonstop for a good little while, impressively never getting touched. They stood virtually back-to-back and each never took on more than a small amount of enemies at once, though they all were a little tired at this point. The enemies started to back off, some helping others get back up from being trampled on. "I see that you all are well-trained fighters. You even have a witch with you."

"I am not a witch you idiot," Pyrona yelled back.

"And I see that you are a coward!... Standing back, watching your men fight," Rose Knight added.

"Oooh let me get him, I love crushing men with so much spirit." The woman beside the man on the horse grew excited and almost lunged out towards Rose Knight until the man stepped down and wrapped his arm around his partner's shoulders.

"Don't worry, allow me to handle this boastful punk. You can have the others." She pleaded for him to reconsider and let her fight ALL of them but she knew he was too stubborn. "Before we engage in combat, allow me to introduce myself; I am Roderick Penmore, and this, is my crazy partner, Sheila." He earned himself a playful, but hard, slap to the back. Though it caught him off guard, he laughed and then gestured for the heroes to look around them, "And they, they are just a small fraction of the vast, and powerful, Cayman Army."

"CAY! MAN!" The men chanted.

"Haha. Now that that's over, let us know who you are before we do battle. It is only courteous and honorable to do so."

"Pshh! Like I care about any of that, let's rumble tough guy." Roderick shrugged his shoulders, feeling a bit disappointed that he did not hear of his opponent's name. He knew that he would have an easy time with this one. No reason not to warm up before they had to get back to their real concern.

"Have it your way." They started circling around each other getting a feel for the other, neither wanting to foolishly underestimate the other. The knight was already worn a little from his previous battle and it clouded his mind just enough to make him impatient, and so he jumped at the enemy. Roderick dodged easily and tried to strike back but missed the incredibly quick counter dodge the knight displayed. Some more sizing up of each other and Rose Knight went for another hit and missed, this time getting pushed away. The horseman was much bigger than the knight, but not much, if at all, slower than him. "Hahahaha! Is this what beat up so many of my soldiers?" Rose Knight regained his composure and went back at it again. Roderick barely dodged this attack and became annoyed. "No more toying around with you." He threw his weapon at the knight's legs causing him to jump, but because Rose Knight was a little tired, he didn't jump back far enough and was caught in midair by a side-swiping kick that made him hit the ground pretty hard. "This isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be."

Sheila grew impatient and started fidgeting, watching her partner from the sidelines play with his prey. She was all too hungry for a fight. "Would you stop fooling around and hurry up!" The man chuckled at her impatience and presumed taking his time with the knight. The three female heroes looked on, allowing their partner to keep as much dignity as he had left before they intervened. This moment, however, came quickly as Roderick had just pinned Rose Knight down after hitting his weapon with enough force from the metal-to-metal contact to put him on his rear. The others couldn't bear just watching anymore and had planned to interfere. Green Ranger pulled out an arrow and shot it at Roderick's back. The other two ran forward to stop Roderick as they figured he would be more than vulnerable at this point. This didn't quite go as immediately thought out as Green Ranger was hit with a kick that sent her flying back into the grass, ripping them up by the roots from the force her body applied to the ground. Her body bounced up and down a few times before finally allowing friction to bring it to a halt. Atalanta and Pyrona turned around before reaching the knight to see the crazed Shelia staring back at them. "Oh I am so glad you just did that."

* * *

 **A/N: Yes! Two chapters in like ten days. lol Probably won't happen like this for the next chapter though. I know there was quite a bit of POV changing going on, but was a bit necessary here. I'll try not to change often within chapters.**

 **So Sharck is on his own now and the group is about to be in trouble. Hopefully, Vienna gets back in time.**

 **What will happen next? Thanks for reading!**


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